


Something To Be

by gisho



Series: Heroes of Another Story [1]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Adopted Children, Alternate Universe - Variant Character Origins, Chemical Weapons, Families of Choice, Gen, I apologize for the imprecision of that term, Stockholm Syndrome, The Even Longer War Than In Canon, The Long War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2018-09-15 14:47:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 42,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9239567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gisho/pseuds/gisho
Summary: Alternate universe.  Agatha isn't a Heterodyne, just an orphan the Clays adopted. Tarvek isn't heir to the Lightning Crown, just a random red-haired kid from Sturmhalten. And Gil isn't a Wulfenbach - but he is the son of a powerful Spark: Petrus Teufel. But blood doesn't always tell ...





	1. Origins to 1881

**Author's Note:**

> Or: Yet Another AU, but this one I actually have outlined - and it starts too far from canon to reasonably be jossed! Slightly inspired by [tanoraqui's speculations](http://tanoraqui.tumblr.com/post/140943142167/somewhere-out-there-in-the-girl-genius), but I wandered pretty far from that premise. Thanks for the inspiration. I'm not sure there's a name for this type of alternate universe; if anyone can think of a better one than 'variant character origins' let me know. 
> 
> Warnings: lot and lots of violence, (eventual) kidnapping with subsequent stockholm syndrome (and matching lima syndrome), dubious morality, characters participating in war crimes. I will try to go light on the graphic violence but this is not likely to be a happy fic ...

\--

The three of them would have made jokes about it, somewhere, somewhen - Baron Wulfenbach, the Storm King, and the Heterodyne, who needs no more title than her own name. They all would have had legacies to live up to, or to put it more prosaically, big shoes to fill. Marks left on history just by existing.

History would take a different shape, without those weights.

\--

The first noticeable change: there is no Holy Child. Lucrezia retreats to the Citadel of Silver Light to scheme, and start her plan, and look for suitable candidates from scratch. (There is always Wilhelm's daughter, since she never managed to have Bill's daughter. It could work, the better if she makes sure Martellus von Blitzengaard never grows up to challenge Anevka's claim.)

Europa still becomes a wasteland, after a few years of having rocks dropped from the sky. The Heterodyne Boys vanish, and neither of them comes back, even in disguise.

\---

The next change: in Skifander, Queen Zantabraxus gives birth to a daughter. Just a daughter.

Her husband, to the surprise of nobody who knows him, dotes on little Zeetha. Until she learns to walk, he carries her with him everywhere in a sling; afterwards he lifts her to his shoulders when they need to move faster than her short legs can manage. But slow as she grows, Zeetha is a fast learner. At five she can diagnose a mis-geared turbine by sound and sneak into the Queens' private labs. Zantabraxus promises to start training her when she turns six, just as her mother did for her.

That mention that turns Zeetha's father thoughtful. Soon, with his wife's permission, he gathers a team to examine the long-broken artifact known as Queen Luheia's Mirror. He studies. He experiments. At long last he develops a working prototype. (With Sparks that's often the best you can hope for.) Zeetha is almost nine, when her father and six of the Double Guard vanish through the glowing green door.

They return three days later, grim-faced and slightly bruised. Her parents confer, in low, anxious voices. Her mother summons the Council; her father sits up with Zeetha, asking questions about her training and posing strategic puzzles until her head is spinning, and finally carrying her to bed.

\--

There is still a machine shop in Beetleburg, with "Clay Mechanical" above the door. No one has a bad word to say about the Clays, especially not constructs, open or otherwise. There are two of the latter on the faculty at Transylvania Polygnostic's tiny teaching hospital, and when a tiny girl with bright green eyes turns up in their foundling hatch in the dead of winter, they quietly rearrange the queue and give her to the Clays. (The foundling hatch at TPU is well-used. Desperate mothers turn up from half of Transylvania, knowing that in Beetleburg, the penalty for using orphans as research subjects is to contribute very _personally_ to medical education.)

Agatha's first word is 'Why?'. She insists on explanations for everything, which Lilith patiently provides. She piles seventy-eight jars in a neat pyramid to prove it can be done, then knocks them over in an attempt to add a layer. She is a very demanding child. Adam and Lilith are happier than they've ever been.

When Agatha is four, they put their names in the queue again, and by the time she starts school she has a little brother. She has a little sister too when she breaks through.

Seven years old. Not unprecedented, but still historic.

There is a hasty conference with Doctor Beetle. There is a public announcement that the clank was a student project gone wrong, and a payment with apologies from Adam to the carter whose drag-engine would not be coming back with a new worm gear, or at all. Agatha is invited to spend her evenings in Beetle's private lab, with the supervision of her father, or one of a few trustworthy lab assistants - all constructs, although Agatha doesn't work that out for a few years. It's not safe out there, after all, for young sparks without protection. Or even with.

\--

When Gilgamesh Teufel breaks through at eight, nobody tries to hide it.

His father is proud. His father rules - or at least gets tribute from - a quarter of the continent, and no one would dare touch his son and heir. The particularly venomous construct he built will help ensure that. Gil doesn't think his father is very good at calculating danger.

It's at this point that Gil starts being invited to strategy meetings. Even the Black Mist Raiders need to plan, and by now, Petrus Teufel has begun thinking in terms of an Empire. Something to leave to his son. He's generally worked by terrifying minions, giving slightly more valuable officers a slice of the loot, but there is something to be said for personal loyalty, and how can they develop it for Gil without knowing him? So: Gil listens in, sitting quietly with his scorpion construct curled in his lap like a cat, where he occasionally scratches it between the antennae. When the news comes that autumn that an army of green-haired warriors has sprung from thin air just outside Wulfenburg, he hears the news as soon as the captains do. The Raider captains laugh at the idea that this will be anything but one more cheap pack of constructs to rain fire from above on. Gilgamesh does not laugh.

Two months later, when the survivors of the Seventh Cloud make their trembling reports, nobody laughs. A lot of people yell, though. This is traditional. The Raiders are overextended right now; pulling back troops to make an assault on Wulfenbach - it is clear, by now, that the long-vanished Baron Klaus is at the head of the strange army - might lose territory. They could stop to raze a few villages on the way out, weaken and terrify the populace to make the reconquest easier, but - that's the sort of thing raiders would do, and Teufel is thinking in terms of an Empire. He does something even more desperate, instead. He sends a messenger to the Pirate Queen of the North Sea, bearing a flag of parley.

Gil, nine-and-a-half and beginning to think things his father wouldn't approve of, is not invited to the treaty negotiations, but he does get to greet the Pirate Queen's envoy: her twenty-year-old daughter, Bangladesh. She exclaims over how cute Zoing is when he hisses and drips venom, and grins at Gil as if they have a shared secret. Maybe they do. Gil goes to bed afterwards still feeling the warm clasp of her fingers. There is a small but non-zero possibility he's just fallen in love.

\--

News of the conquering Skifandrian army spreads quickly. It reaches Paris, and Simon Voltaire frowns, because he remembers Klaus Wulfenbach and does not trust him, and he knows nothing of Zantabraxus and trusts her less. It reaches England, and the undying Albia folds it into her plans with a pensive smile, because if she cannot rule Europe herself she would rather deal with one reasonable enemy than a hundred unreasonable ones. It reaches Venice, and the Golden Doge sends spies, to figure out when or if it will reach to the sea. It reaches Norway, and Haakon the Ice Lord dismisses the news; another little warm-weather conquest that will die before it hits Copenhagen.

Before all of those, it reaches Balan's Gap. Prince Aaronev is not a man in the business of making enemies. He promptly offers an alliance to the Skifandrians, and is accepted, without fanfare or negotiation.

Rumors spread equally quickly.

There is a caravan inn just outside the walls of the city, called, patriotically, the Lightning Crown. It's big and busy, and the common room swirls with news, some of it even true. They say the invading army is made up of talking lizards, that the Queen of Skifander brain-cored Baron Wulfenbach and made him her mindless slave, that the warriors wield swords that can cut through metal. They say the Skifandrians fly on giant paper birds. They say Prince Aaronev offered his daughter's hand in marriage to the Princess of Skifander. They say the Knights of Jove are gathering an army to march on the Black Mist Raiders.

Sometimes they say nothing, because they've passed out on the table. The red-haired boy whose job it is to fetch empty mugs - his proposal for a magnetic retrieval system having been vetoed on the grounds it would scare the customers - amiably lightens their pockets of any remaining cash, then points them out to his mother to drag into the back room. Tarvek, at nine, has heard too many stories about Sparks to believe most of them.

He finally goes to bed around two in the morning, and dreams of dancing clanks. The next noon, he wakes to news he wouldn't believe if it didn't come from a liveried servant: he has been invited to dinner with the Prince.

Prince Aaronev is big and balding and goes _hmm_ a lot. His daughter Anevka is pretty, despite the wrong color dress, and smiles like a knife. He is not told why he's there.

Tarvek has heard stories about Sparks.

(He's heard jokes too, of course. Red hair, no apparent father. But the Prince strikes him as a man whose only care for a bastard would be that they not embarrass him by admitting it.)

Tarvek goes home in a carriage, faking yawns all the way. He says goodnight to his mother. At three in the morning, he departs by the window, to finish the night in a circus prop wagon. By the time they find him, a day and sixty kilometers from Balan's Gap, he's worried himself into the first symptoms of breakthrough.

\--

The year 1881 has a long, warm summer, perfect weather for a war.

\--


	2. 1882 Spring , 1883 Autumn

#### 1882 - Spring

\--

It's spring, very nearly warm weather, and the Europan year is 1882. Zeetha knows that, although she doesn't know what they're counting from. She's lived here for half a year now. It's only right that she go where her mother goes. Now she's going with her parents to Mechanicsburg. They had one of their silent arguments about it, but her mother won.

"They've conquered Transylvania before, but they always lost it," her father explains. (Everyone here wants to deal with him, which is a little disconcerting. He may be Baron Wulfenbach, but her mother is the _War Queen_.) "The Heterodynes liked conquering better than administrating, and they just - lost interest, after a while. And right now, there's no Heterodyne to lead them."

"So who are we negotiating with?"

"The J�gergenerals." He says it in Romanian, and Zeetha frowns as she works it out, _hunter-warleader-plural_. "They have a reputation for being fierce, but they're honorable. We can deal with them. Khrizhan's quite reasonable. And Gkika."

He has a bit of a wistful look, and Zantabraxus elbows him. "Should I be jealous?" She's smiling, though. Zeetha rolls her eyes. It's ridiculous how much her parents flirt.

"Before your time, love." He doesn't smile, he's not that kind of person, but he leans over and slips a hand around her waist.

"Well," Zeetha says loudly, before they can get any soppier. "What if they say they're just fine and can look after themselves?"

"I expect the chance of a good fight will be enough for the J�gers, but if not, we point out that there are bigger dangers out there than they're used to. They don't have an airforce, to start with. And their best defenses were damaged in the attack on Castle Heterodyne. It's - well, you might be able to see it by now. Go ask the pilot."

Zeetha knocks on the panel, which doesn't really qualify as a door, before she steps in. That's the polite thing here.

Their pilot is Europan, and the pilot's compartment is unreasonably full of engine noise, and it takes Zeetha three tries in her very halting Romanian to get across that she wants to see Mechanicsburg. But the woman is very helpful once she understands. She points to a gleaming speck just at the edge of visual range, then gets up to help her align the telescope. It's mounted on a tall stand, wood painted like brass, and Zeetha has to stand on tiptoe to look through. At first all she sees is a cloudy blur; she has to step back to let the pilot refocus it.

One more skill for her perpetually-growing list of Europan Things. She _has_ to master this place; it will be hers to guard someday. Well. Unless some other Princess-Guardian gets picked. But she's half-Europan, and probably no one will challenge her for it. Zeetha figures she has time to learn, though. It might be decades before they're done with the war.

Mechanicsburg stands out of its valley, and the Castle stands out of Mechanicsburg like a foot sticking up under a blanket. She thinks they have very strange architects. Then she realizes the pieces of castle sticking at angles out of the hill must have broken off, all of a piece, in the attack. Who would do so much damage and not even take credit for it? But the rest of the town looks better, bright red splotches she assumes are tile roofs and drifting smoke plumes against the clear sky - a factory? Europans burn coal for heat, but the smoke only came from part of the town. Has to be a factory. Zeetha squints and tries to resolve a little more, but they're still too far away.

"Pretty?" the pilot asks her, sounding very cheerful about it.

Zeetha starts to raise her hand, then remembers and nods her head. "Pretty. But not the castle. Castle is - sad."

"Don't feel too sorry for it, it eats people," the pilot says with a sigh. Zeetha tries to parse this, fails, and concludes she must have misheard.

Half an hour later they land, just outside the walls of Mechanicsburg. It looks bigger from the ground. Zeetha tugs at her jacket and tries to look dignified.

Her composure lasts for most of five minutes, until the J�gergenerals emerge from the gate. Her breath catches. Father didn't mention what they _looked_ like - they must be constructs, no born-human could look like that. One of them is bright red. One is green and has tusks like a warthog. And the one in the tallest hat is shaped just like a human woman, but with blue skin. Zeetha can't help but stare. Then she realizes the woman is staring back, and grinning, and she has pointy teeth in her _whole mouth_. Zeetha reminds herself this is a negotiation, and ventures a smile and a small wave.

The blue skin turns green - emerald green, the same colour as Zeetha's hair. Zeetha blinks. But already the woman is striding forward, to take her father by the hand and exclaim "Klaus!" as if he were an old friend. Well, if this is Gkika, maybe he is. The other generals stand back, but they raise their hands and call out what Zeetha thinks are friendly greetings. She can't quite make out the words.

The subsequent two days teach her a lot of Romanian, especially the Mechanicsburg-accent version. She likes the sound of it. That might be for the best, since by the end of two days, the J�gers have signed on as her mother's shock troops, and they've decided to move their headquarters to Mechanicsburg.

\--

#### 1883 - Autumn

\--

Gil has been listening to his father rant about Baron Wulfenbach for two and a half years now. He wouldn't mind so much, except that none of it is about tactics or psychology, nothing useful. It's out of character, for Petrus to be so impractical. Gil just nods and makes agreeable noises; there are nuggets of intelligence buried on the rants, _the fliers don't even have engines_ or _greek fire! Nobody knows how to make greek fire!_ When Petrus runs out of words, panting, Gil asks if he can do anything. "Leave," his father says.

So he leaves.

With the black bulk of the command ship's envelope well behind him, Gil feels a little less tense. They've been camped outside of Buda all summer, and it shows; the spaces between tents have turned into trampled mudflats. Somebody _finally_ staked down the shielding around the Volatiles Lab, too. That probably means the Skifandrian army is about to attack and they'll have to flee on no notice. Maybe while he's in Buda, and he'll get left behind. He's stewing on this entertaining idea as he nods to the sentries - Zoing is clinging to his shoulder, they don't bother suggesting he take a guard - and makes his way down the road.

"Yumad?" Zoing's antennae are drooping, which means he's nervous.

Fair enough. Gil reaches up to scratch behind them. "At Dad, a little," he admits. "If he just wants someone to scream at there's loads of minions. I could maybe actually help, but he won't listen."

Zoing clicks in sympathy.

"You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make greek fire." He's maybe slipping into a fugue, but that's not a bad thing. "It can't be that hard. Come on, we're going shopping." If it could be done with stuff they already had in the lab, well, his father would have made it already.

An hour in J�nos-piac yields carboys of a dozen substances no sensible person would try to turn into a clinging incendiary weapon. Gil drafts three off-duty Raiders he finds lounging by a fountain to get it all back to the camp, and laughs politely when the shopkeepers joke about invoices.

He's not in enough of a fugue to run back to work right away. It's a nice day, maybe one of the last of the year.

There's a travelling show setting up on one of the meadows, and Gil can't resist the urge to wander over as they finish their crab sandwich. The overall impression is one of endless, bright colors. Two muscular men are slotting the poles of a portable stage curtain together. There's a wagon slung beneath a gasbag, and another on chicken-leg pistons, one of which obviously needs its seals replaced. Gil stomps down the urge to go looking for tools. Instead he heads over to one of the already-standing tents, a purple velvet thing with a sign in fancy script: _Moxana, Muse of Mystery! KNOW what the Future will Hold._ It's dark inside, and quieter than it should be given the tent fabric. Hidden soundproofing? Gil's fingers twitch with the urge to look for things to take apart. There's a rustling noise. He tenses, and Zoing raises his tail.

"Welcome, stranger," intones a voice in the darkness, and then the tent is suddenly lit with a glow the unsettling purple of an argon lamp. Gil blinks. He can't see any soundproofing, but there's plenty of drapery, and the purple glow is from a circle of globular lamps hung on the tent-frame. In the centre of the tent is a clank, a very human-looking one with a porcelain face and articulated hands, seated behind a small table. Standing beside her is, strangely enough, a boy about Gil's age, wearing wire-frame glasses and an embroidered robe a little too big for him. "Welcome to the place where the future is revealed ... for those with the courage to see." It's the boy who's speaking. His voice is high and piping, but he speaks with complete confidence.

"Uh," Gil says. He should have something more sensible to say. He tries again. "I think so. Yes."

"Then think carefully on what you would have revealed," the boy continues, and holds out a hand. Is he supposed to hold hands? Gil tenses - Zoing must feel it, because he grabs on with his third legs - and presses his fingers to the boy's. There's silence. The boy coughs. "If it's your friend with the questions, there is a discount for constructs," he offers, in a much more normal tone of voice.

Oh. Right. Money. Gil briefly considers pulling rank, but this is a travelling show, not some jumped-up merchant who owes them anyway, and he doesn't feel like the argument it might take, with no soldiers with him. Except. Um. He doesn't have any. He feels himself blushing, which is a _stupid_ reaction and one he needs to stop having, and fishes out his two-seventeenths screwdriver, which is a nice piece of work with a mahogany handle. "I want to know if we're going to get to visit - Mechanicsburg, in the next five years. Will this do for both of us?"

"Nicely," says the boy, and makes it vanish. There's a touch of familiar hunger in his voice; Gil wonders if he built this clank himself. "Now wait, as Moxana calculates the paths of the future."

He doesn't touch anything Gil can see, but there's a whirring noise, and the gentle metallic ping of joints coming to life. It really is a well-made clank, and its hands move almost exactly like a human's as it picks up the deck of cards, divides them - Gil can see glimpses of brass as its fingers bend - into two sections, brings them together, does a riff. Repeat. He realizes he's holding his breath. Was it a stupid question, whether they'll conquer Mechanicsburg? Of course he doesn't believe Moxana the Muse of Mystery has any way to tell. It's a question of whether his father or the Queen of Skifander is better at strategy. Gil glances at the clank's head, but it stays still even as the arms gracefully set down the cards, pull one from the top, hold it up before the clank's inscrutable eyes.

"The Whirlwind," says the boy. He sounds honestly surprised, but then he shakes his head and continues, "Great things, but at great risk. The future is uncertain. You may go where you wish, if you act boldly and take chances, but the attempt might lead to disaster."

"Well, that's useless."

"It's _fortunetelling_ ," the boy snaps, "take it or leave it. At least you know there's danger to look out for."

Zoing is busy climbing up Gil's shoulder for a better look. Gil winces at the tug on his hair. At least they've cleared up the 'ears' issue. "Can you tell me what sort of danger? That was a very nice screwdriver."

"Well, these sorts of things are always a little uncertain, you know, we can't -" The boy breaks off, because Moxana is whirring again. Delicately, she flips over another card onto the table, then slowly closes her eyes.

They lean in to look at it. Zoing cheeps. The boy hisses. Gil raises his eyes. "The Queen? What, is Albia going to try and stop us?"

"A powerful woman, of some sort." The boy grins. The lights are making his hair look alarmingly like blood. "Which one I couldn't say. It might be someone you've never heard of, or someone from your own family. Does your mother approve of adventures?"

"I assume so," Gil informs him, "given she was eaten by a geoshark when I was two."

"I'm sorry. That sounds awful."

"Yes, well, it was a very long time ago and I don't really remember. Does your clank have anything more detailed to say, or does she enjoy being obscure?"

Moxana half-opens her eyes at this. They glow, or at least glimmer; Gil would love to get a closer look but people tend to complain about that sort of thing, and, despite everything, he does like the fortuneteller lad, whom he is beginning to suspect, very strongly, is a Spark. The boy says, dropping back into his stage voice, "The Muse of Mystery is far older and stranger than one such as I could encompass. But even her maker could only find a way to see clouded glimpses of the future. Remember, whatever she may predict, can be changed by human actions. If she foresees danger, prepare for it. If she foresees tragedy, avert it. So must it be." Gil resists the urge to clap at the showmanship; he figures terrified awe is more the expected thing. Zoing, less restrained, clicks his claws. The boy smirks, and takes a half-bow; it makes the light do ominous things to his glasses.

He should get out of here, Gil thinks. Before he says anything he might regret. "Thank you," he says, sincerely; if nothing else it's been entertaining. And he might have to come back and check out the rest of the show, the name _Moxana_ seems familiar but he's not sure why, but right now mostly he wants to get back to the Volatiles Lab and get to work before the urge to get a look at Moxana gets any stronger, yes, self-control - "I'll be careful, at least."

"Good luck, then," the boy says, sounding equally sincere, and waves him to the door.

By the time he gets back to camp, it's almost dark, and the smell of the massive soup vats is filling the air with the smell of roast beef. Gil takes deep breaths of it before he heads for the lab, grabbing a gas mask off the wall as he goes. All the carboys he had delivered are sitting side by side next to the storage vats, which he will have to chew someone out about. Vidiric acid and camphor balm shouldn't be kept within two meters. But he can do that in the morning. He pulls on some gloves and carries the camphor balm over to his bench, where - his father is sitting. Um. Now would be a really bad time to drop something in surprise.

"Welcome back," Petrus says. He sounds very tired. "Did you two have a good time in Buda?"

Gilgamesh blinks. Zoing is less nervous; Zoing leaps right onto the bench, then leans over, antennae quivering, for a scritch. "Guday!" he announces. "Wntshping."

"Yes, yes, I saw the delivery." Petrus delivers the demanded scritch. It always makes Gil feel a little strange to see Zoing getting on with his father; his friend is so shy with almost everyone else. "I owe you an apology, Gil. I have minions to rant at. You shouldn't be subjected to it."

"Um," Gil says. "It's alright. You were upset." He doesn't point out just how often Dad gets upset about Baron Wulfenbach. If it is the result of some subtle mind-affecting attack, well, it's probably too subtle to counter. "And it gave me ideas, so I thought I'd have a crack at the greek fire thing myself? Not much chance, but ..."

"Worth trying. It's always good to get a fresh angle on things." Petrus nods. "Would you mind if I helped? It's been too long since I had a nice: night in the chemistry lab."

Gil finds himself smiling. Petrus is always busy, he has an empire to run, but he brings Gil along to show him how it's done _and_ he finds time just for the two of them and Zoing, and Gil feels very, very lucky he has the father he does. "Of course," he says, and his father smiles like he's just gotten a wagon full of gold.

They can do this. They'll work out the formula, they'll defeat Baron Wulfenbach and take Mechanicsburg, they'll get Paris someday, Byzantium, maybe Venice. Great risk, but great results. Right.

\--


	3. 1884 Winter

#### 1884 - Winter

\--

Snow piles up on the streets of Beetleburg so high Agatha starts sketching a glass roof for the town. Glass so it heats up inside like a greenhouse, she explains to Klaus. Her brother nods solemnly, and  
asks what they'll do in summer.

"Take it down, I guess," she says. "It's not like we can get raindrifts."

"We can get floods," Klaus points out, with a look too serious for five years old.

Agatha snaps, "Well, a roof won't really help with those." She shouldn't yell, her parents keep telling her that, but she can't get any sleep, because Klaus and Sorina are in her room, because their parents are in Klaus's room, because their friends B�la and Erzsi and Gizi are in their room, because some relatives of their landlord from the country are in their old apartment, because a big tree and a few hogsheads of snow are in their house. It's like one of those tumbling-blocks games except it all ends in misery and nobody getting any sleep.

It just keeps going, too, because the next morning Lilith comes to the lab with her and brings them both. "I just need to talk to Doctor Beetle," she says, "so you have to look after them until lunchtime."

"Make B�la do it," Agatha counters. He's been complaining of boredom since the passes closed.

Lilith gets a Look and tightens her arms around Sorina. "I would trust B�la with my life," she pronounces, "but not my daughter's. He is _not_ a fit guardian for small children." And there must be a story there, but Agatha knows she'll never get it. She yields to the inevitable, and starts trying to think of things to do that won't draw her into a fugue. Her parents have told her, over and over, that sparking out isn't safe and she shouldn't do it around her siblings unless there's someone else in the room, which there won't be because all Doctor Beetle's assistants are home with flu or are too busy keeping the University boiler running to help her. Besides, Klaus makes a terrible minion. He's just too abstract.

Instead she gives him a copy of the student newspaper, which is the simplest-looking piece of writing in the lab, and tells him to read it to Sorina. They settle down next to the radiator. Agatha takes a sheet of folio paper and starts a better sketch of her town roof. There would have to be multiple peaks, which means careful planning about which streets will have runoff channels, which means she really should be working from a map, she concludes after about half an hour of designing substructures to withstand wind stress. Klaus has just about run out of newspaper, even stopping to spell out the difficult words as part of his ongoing campaign to teach Sorina to read so he doesn't have to read to her so much. It's going slowly. Agatha would help if she could think of a way, but she doesn't remember ever _not_ being able to read. She looks for the second-simplest piece of writing in the lab, which turns out to be a Guide to Geology of the Carpathians, and hands it to Klaus. "I have to go to Beetle's office," she informs him. "It's two doors to the left, if you walk out of the lab. I'll be right back. If anything really bad happens, scream."

Klaus accepts this advice with a solemn nod.

There are low voices coming from the office. Agatha hesitates outside, wondering if she should leave them to talk uninterrupted, but the next closest map of Beetleburg including sewers is probably in the boilerhouse, three buildings away, and they might not let her borrow it. She knocks. The voices break off. Beetle calls out, "Who is it?"

"Agatha. I just need something out of your files."

There's a long pause, and then the click of a lock.

Her mother is staring out the window. Doctor Beetle looks - tense, is the best word Agatha can come up with. "Tell me, dear," he says as she pulls the map from its accustomed place (top unlocked map drawer, under the University steam tunnel map), "what do you think of the Heterodyne Boys?"

That one's easy, but - "They were heroes," she says, and wonders why he asked. "They helped all kinds of people."

"And what did they do that was wrong?"

What does Beetle care? He's a Spark. So were they. So is she, even if - oh. Oh dear. Has it just now occurred to him that she could be a threat? He lets her use his _lab_ , you wouldn�t do that with a threat. Unless it was someone you wanted to keep a very close eye on, and possibly steal their work. And he runs this town. He has the access codes for Mister Tock. She tries to think of a non-threatening answer that will play to his prejudices. "Well," she manages, "they didn't follow through."

"What do you mean?"

"They took out Sparks who went bad, and then they just - left. People never talk about what happens to a town that was ruled by a madman when there's nobody ruling it anymore, and everyone smart's either run away or annoyed the madman and got turned into a hamster, and there's no more roads because he pulled up the flagstones to build a giant turnip storage building. That sort of thing. If they really wanted to help people they should have done like the old Heterodynes did, and founded an empire. Things are good in Beetleburg because we have someone really smart running it." She hopes that's not laying it on too thick. It has the advantage of being mostly true.

Beetle nods slowly. "Thank you, Agatha," he says. "That's a useful perspective."

"About what? Do you want me to stay here? Because I left Klaus and - "

"No, that's fine, go back to the lab." He waves a hand in airy dismissal.

She opens the door. Doctor Merlot is outside, wearing his habitual expression of distaste, which only intensifies when he sees her into an outright scowl. She brushes past, and only barely hears the burst of complaint he directs at Beetle behind her. Something about letting people where they don't belong. She has work to do, and probably a lot of geological terms to define for her brother and sister.

Agatha spends the night tossing and turning, and a few hours before dawn, she gives up and goes downstairs. The only noises are the distant rattle of the wind, and the irregular whuffling of Quince's snores - he had just turned up yesterday afternoon, and made a nest in the corner of Adam's forge with the equanimity of someone too tall to get through most doors. Which is fine, better the poor man have a roof to sleep under, but it also means they have to leave the stove burning overnight and that means about a fourteen percent increase in their fuel consumption for as long as he's here. And the price of wood is already four times as much as last October's price. This is very unpleasant math. Maybe she should design a wood-gathering clank. Later. The kitchen stove is still glowing; she dumps in some more kindling, fills the kettle, and starts looking for eggs to fry.

Her omelet is bubbling nicely when Lilith pads in, wrapped in a dressing gown and shawl and without her glasses. She looks like she hasn't slept at all. Agatha greets her with a hug, which she returns a little tighter than usual and whispers, "Are you alright, dear? We usually can't get you out of bed with a hoist."

"Too noisy. Klaus talks in his sleep." She wrinkles her nose. "What was the business with Beetle about, yesterday?"

"He just wanted my advice about something. Politics."

"That took three hours?" Agatha crosses her arms. "And what do you know about politics? You teach piano."

"Really, it's nothing you need worry about, Agatha - "

"Well, I'm going to," she says, and rolls her eyes. "You do know I'm not just good at putting things in order when they're clank parts, right? I'm not a little kid anymore. And you're hiding something from me. _Lilith._ I know you're my mother and you don't want to worry me but I'd worry a lot less if you would just _tell me what's going on_."

Lilith pours herself a cup of tea. Agatha waits for her to yield to the inevitable.

But after a suitable pause, all she says is, "This has been a very hard winter. Doctor Beetle is considering an offer of assistance from the Skifandrian Empire."

"Oh."

"Quite. He would still have internal control over the town, of course."

Agatha shrugs. "I guess it's better than waiting until we actually run out of food." Her mother's canning habit is starting to look a lot more sensible. It's only a matter of time until the farms outside Beetleburg start eating their chickens instead of feeding them, and then there won't be any more omelets. If they're lucky the passes will be open again by May.

Lilith is rubbing her temple, which is the equivalent of fiddling with her glasses when she's not wearing them. "If he accepts, there is something that affects you," she eventually admits. A-ha! "Whether to reveal your Spark to Baron Wulfenbach."

Oh. That.

Agatha is painfully aware of the risks, sometimes. Nobody can get good statistics on Sparks, but a few years ago a TPU student had done his thesis on the increased incidence of Sparks in urban areas. His conclusion, buried in a lot of hemming and hawing and "impossible to conclusively determine", was that it didn't exist. Urban Sparks were just more likely to _survive_. Better education, better materials, less murderous neighbors. But even in as accepting a town as Beetleburg, there was the opposite concern - that someone would try to steal her and make her _work_ for them. There were plenty of rulers without the Spark who liked the idea of a caged inventor, and if it was someone young and easy to intimidate, so much the better. That was why they'd pretended her breakthrough was a student project gone wrong, why she used Beetle's labs on weekends instead of having her own, why she still had to go to regular school, even if they let her pretend to be sick a lot. Act normal, Lilith had told her, as hard as you can, because we couldn't keep you safe if everyone knew.

Something about that thought nags at her, but she sets the idea aside for now. For now - "They have flying machines, don't they?"

"The Skifandrians? They do. Made of cloth, that flap their wings like birds."

"If I were working for them, do you think they'd let me take one apart and look at the wing controls?"

Lilith blinks a few times. "I'm fairly certain," she says, "that's not the most important consideration."

"Maybe not, but I want to," Agatha says. "Everything else is over my head."

Her mother wraps Agatha in her arms. She's usually good at gentle hugs, but this one is so tight Agatha could swear she feels her vertebrae grinding together. "Don't worry about it, Agatha," she rumbles. "We'll look after you. It's our job." Which is a touching sentiment, and delivered so fiercely that Agatha melts against her mother's side and doesn't bother to point out that it's not actually an answer.

\--

Bang is just finishing sharpening her cutlass - it's old-fashioned, but hey, sometimes you just need to chop something into tiny bits - when the footman comes back with her coffee. He has a handful of papers, too, and he must have learned his lesson about spilling coffee on the post because they're held out in his left hand away from his body. It makes him look ridiculous. Bang is in a good mood, though, so all she does is snicker and take the coffee.

Plunder report, plunder report, refitting and Z-gas bill from the Orkney Yards - they really should just have scuttled the Chokepear and grabbed something nicer, but Mother had a sentimental attachment - clipping from the Times with too many adjectives, letter from Gilgamesh. She starts with the clipping, since they're generally good for a laugh, but there's only so many times you can get called Unchecked Menace To Our Commercial Fleets before it loses its thrill. Really, can't they be more creative? Whatever happened to Terror Of The Air And Scourge Of The Clouds? Bang crumples the clipping and lofts it onto the fire.

"Nice shot," calls out her second mate from the sofa, where she's stitching up Bang's torn gauntlets. It had been a hell of a trip.

"Thanks! I'm practicing for grenades!"

"What are we gonna do with grenades in a boarding battle?"

Bang rocks back and plants her feet on the desk. "Depends if my boyfriend sent me any candy recipes," she declares, and waves the letter from Gil. The joke is so old it's automatic. Gil is a sweet kid, but even if he were her age and not eleven years short, Bang doesn't go for _sweet_. But he does send her recipes. She still breathes hard when she thinks about the one from last November. A quarter-pint of stuff that looked like sherry, and it left a burning crater on the test range. The stuff is still a hazard in travel, though, until their boffins figure out how to insulate the kegs.

Bang is pretty sure Petrus Teufel would be pissed if he worked out how much intelligence Gil was handing over for free, but she also thinks Gilgamesh gets the idea of _allies_ better than his dad.

He also sends actual edible candy sometimes, which is cute in a hopeless kind of way.

"We could have a lot of fun with smoke bombs, if we could get through the portholes," her second mate mutters. "But everyone's reinforcing these days."

"Yeah, so we need something loud to breach them. Which is why I asked Gil about impact-sensitive explosives." Bang ruffles through the letter, which is - thirty pages long. Wow. Gil must be _bored_. He has tiny little handwriting, too. But none of it looks like the splotchy discolouration of invisible ink, which means no recipe. "Damn. Well, maybe we can get that pebble-shooter thing working."

"Fat chance. I don't think it ever worked."

"Which is good, or the big guy would've shot your eye out."

"Yeah, yeah, never live it down." Her second mate scowls, and squints at the edge of the leather. It's not a happy memory for either of them, despite the very funny way the big guy's scream had gone high-pitched as he fell.

The letter is rambling and disjointed, obviously written over weeks. Nothing, Gil scribbles, is going right. They're almost snowbound. One of the kitchen hands turned out to be a Smoke Knight and tried to poison them, and his dad insisted on Zoing stinging the idiot. Their new Iris engines are skipping and freezing at altitude, and come spring proper someone is going to pay the warranty, and he promises Bang a full account. Gil beat his father at chess, for the first time. The dead Smoke Knight fell in the soup tureen. They caught a J�germonster outside one of their gun emplacements, and he claimed not to be working for Wulfenbach, but nobody believed him.

And a dozen experiments havn't turned up the impact-sensitive explosive Bang wants so badly.

Well, fuming won't make things go boom any faster. Bang folds up the letter and stuffs it under the inkpot. She'll write him back later. Maybe send along that nifty pocketwatch with the built-in magnifying glass and compass, the one she took off the Dowager Countess of some place she'd never heard of, Gil likes that kind of thing. But right now she's going to have dinner with Mother and tell her all about the fun bits of the last raid that never make it into plunder reports.

\--


	4. 1884 Spring

#### 1884 - Spring

\--

So, nobody starved, which is good. Airship commerce is much more reliable than trying to get things over the Carpathians by wagon. And Beetleburg is a Skifandrian protectorate, which is better than being a Skifandrian enemy. And the Skifandrians don't know Agatha exists. Which, actually, she's a little disappointed about, but Beetle put his foot down. That was how her mother had put it, frowning but not actually sounding displeased.

She still doesn't have her bedroom back, though. If it goes on much longer she's going to start sleeping in the forge with Quince.

It's not that Agatha doesn't love her siblings, it's just that it gets hard to think with them making noise. And she's stuck looking after them on weekends, too, since Lilith is teaching extra students now. On the bright side, that meant when the first brave travelling show made it into town, "Sorina will like it" had proved enough of an argument to overcome her parents' objections. Agatha has wondered for a while exactly what they have against Heterodyne shows. She only won _this_ argument by not mentioning the play and just pointing out the fake Muse.

Two fake muses, as it turns out - the Moxana is very convincingly built. Agatha only suppresses the urge to start unscrewing casings because Sorina runs forward and starts rubbing the tablecloth. "Fuzzy," she announces to the room at large.

The Moxana is being run by a boy not much older than Agatha, with red hair and a very sweet smile, and he turns its full force on the little girl now. "It is. That kind of fabric is called velvet," he explains.

Sorina looks a little indignant. "I knew that."

"Did you? Do you know what this is?" He holds out one of his sweeping sleeves.

Sorina feels it, frowning. "Silk?"

"Satin, to be precise. You are clearly a young lady of discerning and refined tastes." He looks up to turn the charming smile on Agatha and Klaus, and Agatha almost involuntarily smiles back. "And you must be her - brother and sister? Welcome, strangers. Do you dare to have the future revealed?"

Agatha lets Klaus take over the conversation, paying only enough attention to hand over a few coins at the appropriate point. The tent is uninteresting, even though the lights are very nicely made; she's more intrigued by the Muse. There's only so much to be learned by a superficial examination. But she can tell the joints of the hands are masterwork, mimicking human hands exactly in their range of motion, and the eyes are a very good match for the original Moxana's - not the sort of detail most fakes can manage.

And the reaction time is - interesting. She could swear it starts dealing cards without the boy so much as stepping on a pedal. Either there's a delay and he has _excellent_ timing, or there's a responsive clank-brain in there, which suggests a Spark with a serious interest in Van Rijn's work. She should tell Doctor Beetle about this. He'll want to find the maker and compare notes, at least.

The thought is still in her mind while they watch the titular Master Payne do a series of fascinating magic tricks, and a lady with fascinating tattoos and not very much clothing dance with a large, yellow snake, and a man with a lute sings something in Italian. It stays until a dancing clank introduced as Tinka comes onstage, and then it blows up into an urge so strong that Agatha almost jumps up from her seat, restrained only by Klaus's tugging on her wrist and urgent whisper of, "Don't you want to see the play?"

\--

There's a line outside the tent so long Tarvek has to take a moment to 'ready more sensitive instruments', in the form of calling Abner over to cut them off, and then he barely has time to run the lighting check, and then he has to get Moxana back into the wagon, just in case, which doesn't give them time to talk. He runs the lights on autopilot, paying just enough attention to the stage that he can pay Lars some convincing compliments later. The applause is loud, of course. _Race to the West Pole_ is always a crowd-pleaser.

Afterwards he helps the Countess put away her costumes, and stops just long enough to appropriate a leftover fried trilobite, because he never did manage to get supper in the rush. When he makes it back to the wagon, Lars is already setting up his bedroll across the steps.

Tarvek rubs his nose. "You again? Don't you have a girl to see?"

"Alas, the lovely Floria has gone away to seek her fortune. Or so I was informed." Lars grins, and leans back against the wagon. "Can't win them all."

"She can't be the only girl in Beetleburg." Tarvek rolls his eyes. He's been assured that romance will make more sense when he's older, and he's willing to suspend judgment, but from age eleven the whole mess seems like more evidence that most people are complete fools. Still, Lars is a very friendly and protective fool and he puts up with 'new guy' jokes despite having joined up only three months after Tarvek, so Tarvek ventures, "Not one lady seduced by the charming Bill Heterodyne?"

"To tell the truth, I was too terrified to watch the audience."

"Well, it didn't show. I liked how you did the Pole-of-my-heart speech. Nice dramatic hand gestures."

That gets a blush. "Think they'll let me do Bill again?"

"I should think so." He grins, and leaps neatly over the bedroll. "Maybe you can attract a new Lucrezia. I think the Countess is getting sick of it." And, last word duly grabbed, shuts the door behind him before Lars can sputter out a response.

If he's being honest with himself, it's reassuring. Tinka and Moxana can defend themselves; they were built with it, to stun anyone they lay hands on. (Someday he'll work out their power source.) Tarvek can defend himself, somewhat, with a few unpleasant things he keeps tucked up his sleeves. But if some grabby local lord decided to send a squad of soldiers after the muses, or someone worked out Tarvek was a spark - well. There's a reason he stays in Master Payne's wagon if they go through Balan's Gap. And even here, with no reason they know of to fear - the thought of the minute Lars might buy them by explaining at length that it's just the prop wagon, the minute that might hide or disguise them, is a very comforting thought.

Tinka has already turned on the nightlights, and she sits with legs folded atop the chest of hats. Tarvek settles into his accustomed spot on the Throne of the Bear Queen, and kicks off his shoes. "Alright," he says. "What's the matter and who do I have to burgle?"

That at least gets a laugh out of Tinka, a sound like tiny bells and a quiver of the shoulders, only a laugh if you know her. Tarvek knows her. But Moxana isn't giving her subtler laugh of a twinkling eye. Instead she's folding away her cards and pulling out the chessboard. Strange. They've played chess sometimes - Moxana always wins, but Tarvek likes to think he puts up a good fight - but she doesn't tend to use it for communication.

They both lean in to watch, Tinka with hands raised in anticipation, Tarvek with clenched fists. Moxana selects the black queen, and sets it in the center of the board with a decisive click.

Tinka pulls back in surprise. "Another one?"

"What do you mean, another?" Tarvek asks, a little sharper than he meant to.

"Zantabraxus of Skifander was the black queen," Tinka explains, hands fluttering in her agitation. Already Moxana is pulling out another black queen. This one she sets on the board upside-down, resting on the crown. Then a white knight, set carefully in a space neither queen is attacking.

Tarvek thinks frantically. Chess pieces aren't cards, upside down has some other - aha. He's seen upside-down queens before, in the pages of  
books of chess problems. "Who's the maharajah?"

That gets a blank look. He's sure Moxana would be laughing at him if she could. But after a moment she sets down a bishop and pawn, so close to the inverted queen they're almost on the same square, then produces a card and holds it up to her face as if she were giving a reading, back-out. Oh, that's ridiculous, but the idea is fascinating. "Does this have to do with the blond girl who looked like she wanted to start unscrewing your casing?" A nod, and then Moxana pulls away the bishop and pawn and starts laying out more pieces.

"You're very sure of this, sister," Tinka says, with a quaver to her voice that suggests she's significantly less. Tarvek ignores it, and goes for his notebook.

It only takes him a minute to get the layout sketched. These things are always important, and you never know what patterns are only obvious in hindsight. When he's done he sets it down, breathing hard, and reaches for Moxana's hand. They don't have a sensation of touch as such, Tinka's told him, but he figures getting so close to the stun electrode is a good way of signaling trust. "What can I do? Is there anything?"

Moxana lets go, produces a white knight and a black knight, and drops them into his open palm.

Tarvek stares. Then, frowning, he drops them on the table. "I'm on _your_ side," he tells them. "I don't think that's the same side as anyone else, except the rest of the circus."

"We know," Tinka says, and pats his shoulder. "We're on your side too, Tarvek. Safety and secrecy."

But Moxana doesn't pick up the fallen pieces.

\--


	5. 1884 Summer

#### 1884 - Summer

\--

The summer of 1884 is short and cool, leaving the skies of Europa dusted with clouds. In Mechanicsburg, newly-arrived Skifandrian soldiers grumble beneath their jackets and cast longing glances at the portal to their warm, well-defended home. Baron Wulfenbach orders extra food stockpiled. His daughter puts in long hours of sword practice, befriending several J�gers in the process. She feels restless these days, busy as she is.

In Beetleburg, Agatha finally has her bedroom back. She promptly fills the floor with sketches and wooden models, in pursuit of her new dream: expandable buildings. Her room in the attic is very nice, but it would be nicer if there were another story beneath it. It could all be done by clanks, if the designs were simple. She starts building little clanks to test the ideas on her miniatures, wiggling things with scissor-lift legs. It all feels so easy, like she's working off the designs in her dreams.

Sturmhalten is never quite free of snow that summer. Princess Anevka drifts through the chilly hallways in unseasonable furs, and watches the air docks expand from her lab window. Her father buries himself in administration, and when that loses its savor, in his ongoing quest to create better - well, she's not sure. He may have forgotten himself, somewhere in all the dissections. He's not capable of deep concentration or plotting, and Anevka wishes he weren't such a useful patsy so she had an excuse to just kill him already. If she were older, if the Geisterdamen were less loyal, or less sure he was on their side - well, there will be time. Meanwhile, she argues for a winter in Paris. She has other alliances to make.

Lady Vrin only finds two candidates that summer. Her hunters hear rumours that the Skifandrian queen's daughter is showing signs of the Spark, but the girl is too well protected for an attempt.

Master Payne's Circus of Adventure winds through the arc of the northern Carpathians, where Vlach gives way to Ruthene. Lars settles into his new regular role as a leading man; he proves full of vitality and gathers a new string of eager village girls and angry fathers. Tarvek spends so much time brooding that Countess Marie starts asking delicate questions which, he is amused to work out, boil down to whether he's hit puberty early. He hasn't, and reassures her of his good health by emerging long enough to refit the pistons on Baba Yaga.

Across the plains of Poland, Bangladesh Dupree fulfills the terms of her mother's treaty with the Black Mist Raiders by going after every Skifandrian ship she can take, even if there's funner ones in range. Let them just _try_ to expand north. At least they tend to have interesting weapons to take home, and the Skifandrians don't pay ransoms so there's none of that mess with prisoner transport. She wishes she could go back to freight lines, though. Teufel better be sending them good tribute to make up for it.

In his peripatetic headquarters, currently perched as close to the Apuseni Mountains as he dares, Petrus Teufel contemplates the best ways to harass Wulfenbach's troops. This open-battle business isn't where their talents lie. They're the Black Mist _Raiders_ , and there must be something they can do that's less ... confrontational, than the direct blast-and-shoot the Skifandrians have very effectively been egging them into. He takes long walks to think it over. He brings Gil for company, and to check his ideas - the boy is brilliant, even if he's shy. He has a strategic mind better than any of Teufel's captains. He'll make their little empire _last_. Sometimes Teufel thinks Gil is the best thing that ever happened to him.

It's just barely evening, by the banks of a little stream far enough away for the noise of their camp to be a dull noise on the edge of hearing, when Gil spots a swarm of flies congregating around a freshly-dead fox. The image sticks in his mind. Over breakfast the next morning, he offers, "Do you think we could do anything with insects?"

"I don't think the Skifandrians are afraid of wasps. The Other had been gone for years when they turned up." His father stabs a sausage with his knife, so hard the table jumps.

"I didn't mean that. I meant as a delivery system. We have the bombs, but those only go as far as you throw them." Gil grabs a piece of toast and passes it to Zoing. "Something living, they couldn't just dodge so easily."

His father looks thoughtful. "There are poisons made from insects," he says, slowly. "Beetles that spit venom ... Perhaps they wouldn't need to just be a delivery mechanism."

"Well." Gil blinks. "It depends on how big an area of effect you need? If you're just trying to distract your enemies, maybe. Like throwing sand in their eyes."

"You think too small, lad," Petrus says, and his face lights up. "Think drop-and-run, and there's no worry about self-inflicted casualties and you use something however strong you please. I expect we can at least match cryptim gas. We'll need biological samples, all kinds of swarming insects - you can take care of acquisitions, right, Gil?" Gil nods and tries not to think about the sudden feeling like he's just tried to light a lamp and set his tent on fire. "Excellent. Use Cloud Fifty-six for minions if you like."

Cloud Fifty-six are currently at about half of fighting strength and out an airship, after an encounter at the Iron Gate that went so badly the Skifandrians probably had a party afterwards. Running around the countryside looking for flies will almost be a rest cure.

It goes quickly enough, with two Sparks and half a regiment on the project. By the time the leaves turn, Teufel has developed a variant of phorbol that works even faster on humans, leaving blisters in seconds if it touches skin. A few weeks later they've settled on beetles as the mechanism. They're beautiful, iridescent reddish-green on the carapace and barely the size of Gil's fingernail. When they release the neutral test swarm, it's like someone threw a tub of glitter into the air.

It's not the sight that makes Gil flush with pride, so much as his father squeezing his shoulder and saying, "Wonderful. We should try to breed at least a thousand swarms by spring."

"I think we can get four thousand if we incubate the egg capsules at a high enough temperature," he answers, and basks in his dad's smile.

Gilgamesh doesn't mention the blister-beetles to Bang, beyond an apology for his distraction. She wouldn't care for them. She likes fire and blades and to get up close and personal with her violence, and something that absolutely _requires_ you not get anywhere near, Gil reasons, just wouldn't be to her tastes.

\--


	6. 1885 Spring

#### 1885 - Spring

\--

The window breaks at about two in the morning. 

It wakes up Agatha, of course. She blinks, trying to orient herself; she was very soundly asleep, for once, not even dreaming. She twitches, tries to focus on the source of the noise, and then a woman dressed all in white drops through the broken window, calling out something Agatha doesn't understand in a low hiss. She understands enough, though. She does what Lilith taught her, and lets out her loudest, shrillest scream. 

The next few moments are a blur. Someone else comes in the window. Agatha manages to grab her knife before they reach her, and slams it into one of her attacker's wrists. She gets another with a kick (aim for the solar plexus) and grabs for a third by the skirt (why are there three?) but doesn't take them out. Someone shoves a hand over her mouth, so she bites. There's a pounding noise, feet on the stairs, but Agatha is already being dragged out the window. She doesn't know if whatever these people want to do to her is worse than a three-story drop; she goes still with terror. There's a quarter-moon tonight, which is just enough to make their white hair glimmer, and the shells of their -

Giant spiders? _Giant spiders?_ That is _not_ fair.

But she's being swung up on a, yes, giant spider, and she doesn't have her knife anymore, and this is bad. She screams again, doing her best to make it loud and shrill and terrified. The women in white are calling to each other, out loud now, still without any words Agatha recognizes. She tries kicking, but all it does is hurt her toes. Then there's a lurch, and an inarticulate roar somewhere below.

Agatha opens her eyes. Quince is standing in the street, unfolded to his full ten feet and swinging her father's hammer into the spider's legs. He does it again. The woman holding Agatha yells and tosses her away as the spider begins to fall. It lands her right on the saddle of another, but the rider wasn't expecting it and barely grabs Agatha by the back of her nightgown, which gives her just enough leverage to scratch and kick. She screams again, just in case.

Gravity turns sideways for a moment, and she realizes the spiders have lept onto the roof - two of them, at least, two are still down where Quince is making awful crunching noises. There's a twang and a sudden boom somewhere behind them - Lilith must have her crossbow out. Someone screams. Agatha isn't sure if it's her.

And then, a wonderful, magnificent, _familiar_ noise, a grinding of gears and a steam-whistle. An incredible thump.

"Do Not Move," booms Mr. Tock.

Quince bellows again, in the near-distance, out of some sort of fellow-feeling.

\--

It's evening before the Questor turns up. Agatha managed a nap by pointing out to everyone how tired Sorina was, but her nerves are still jangling, and when Doctor Beetle got word of the approaching ship he went on a terrifying rant about - well, it started with Wulfenbach's bureaucracy and how this was interference with internal affairs, and how he had no _right_. The unfortunate human Municipal Guards, who'd stuck around in case someone tried to break out their prisoners, looked slightly relieved by the idea of a higher authority. But the time the courier ship lands in the quadrangle, Beetle is at least faking calm. Agatha presses her face to the window of the faculty lounge, trying to get a better look. It's a Honig four-engine, lightweight and optimized for speed, just big enough to hold the six people who spill out of it. "I wonder which one is the Questor," Klaus whispers.

"I don't know," Agatha says. None of the people are in uniform. "Look at their harpoon system - are those extra reels? I wonder how high they could latch on from?" 

Her brother squints at the silvery shapes on the gondola, and shakes his head. "I think those are just externally mounted," he offers, but very hesitantly. Agatha is pretty sure they aren't. She's also inching closer to the certainty that Klaus needs glasses. 

The Questor turns out to be the tall grey-haired woman in a gabardine gown, and she takes only a few minutes to find them, over Beetle's protests that Agatha has had a nasty shock and is in no fit state. "Nonsense, the girl looks quite fine," she snaps, and looks down at Agatha with a little gentler expression. "Is that right?" 

"I'm fine," Agatha says. "But I don't really know how much I can tell you. I mean, I don't know why they came after me. Or even if it was me they were looking for." She winds her hands together and looks at the floor and tries not to lean into Doctor Glassvitch's hand on her shoulder too obviously. "And I didn't understand anything they said." 

"Nobody does. We've never communicated with them. But then, we've never captured one before. Congratulations on that, by the way, your Mister Tock is quite a work of art," she adds to Beetle, who is as flushed with anger as his complexion allows. "This may be our best opportunity to figure out what they actually want." 

Beetle pulls himself up to his full height. "I don't see that it matters. Something nefarious, certainly, and I don't see what interest they would have in Agatha. She's just a student, for goodness sake. She's _eleven._ " Glassvitch's hands tighten on Agatha's shoulders. She wishes her parents were here. She doesn't see why they left. 

The Questor folds her arms. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe something to do with her being the Spark you've been hiding?" 

There follows rather a lot of yelling. Beetle keeps up the pretense, at increasing volume, for most of a minute; the Questor gets remarkably stern and snappish in response, reeling off the things he missed. At some level Agatha pays attention, knowing this is a perfect chance to learn how to hide a breakthrough _properly_ , but mostly she's tired and suddenly very scared and she wants to burrow into her chair and not come out for a few hours. Glassvitch tries for about two minutes to interrupt and suggest that they all take a deep breath and talk things over like reasonable people, but then he gives up and sits down in the other chair, casting her a look of despairing apology. Agatha shrugs back. Beetle is a spark, the Questor lady is a Professora, and they could go on for hours. Something about 'unnecessary quantities of petroleum' floats over, and Agatha winces, remembering last fall's attempt at a snow-removal wagon. Then they veer onto the topic of the ladies who tried to kidnap her, who are apparently known as Ghost Ladies, and Agatha listens with a little more interest. It doesn't help. They pause to catch their breaths; the Questor is faster, and begins rattling off a list of demands. Interviews with the municipal guardsmen. A copy of Mister Tock's audio-memory. Any artifacts removed from the prisoners. "Oh, and send the Clays in, I want to talk to them next," she finishes, quite casually.

Beetle wilts. "Really, Frau Von Smythe -"

"Professora," she icily corrects, and that's that.

Her parents arrive after a short interval in which the Questor hastily asks Glassvitch if there's anything else Beetle is hiding - if he is he's hiding it from Glassvitch too, so that goes nowhere - and plant themselves firmly just inside the door, coincidentally blocking the exit. Her sibling aren't with them. Adam looks like he's making a bad attempt at hiding a scowl, which means he really is upset and wants people to know and be a little scared. Lilith is squinting through her glasses in the way she does when she's thinking hard. "You had some questions for us?" she says, with an undertone of _this had better be important_. 

Which of course doesn't work on the Questor, who's probably faced down Sparks in full rant mode. "In fact, I had an offer for you," she says, and spreads her hands. "But I do have a question first. Why did Doctor Beetle attempt to hide your daughter's Spark?" 

"There are all kinds of dangers in the world," Lilith says, voice tight. "As was demonstrated last night." 

"True, and a good reason for you to agree. But it would have been very altruistic if that was his only reason for _proposing_ it. Sparks get territorial," she adds, with the sigh of someone who's known too many. 

Lilith narrows her eyes, but she says, "Perhaps he had a charitable impulse. He didn't explain himself, just proposed ways to hide. What business is it of Baron Wulfenbach's?" 

"In the strictest sense, none at all. Certainly, if you wanted to stay here and attempt to keep her hidden, we wouldn't make an issue of it. But there might be - opportunities elsewhere, for a young woman of her talents. Opportunities for collaboration. Do you know how many Sparks are resident in Mechanicsburg right now?" 

"I'm sure I have no idea," Lilith says, but she sounds a little interested despite herself. Agatha has to try very hard not to bounce in her chair. She could go work with the Skifandrians? Maybe have her own lab and spend all her time doing mechanics and - She tenses, and tightens her hands on the cushion. It would be undignified to beg. 

The Questor smiles. "More than twenty, at the moment - not least Queen Zantabraxus of Skifander. Europa has not always been kind to scientifically-inclined women, but she hopes to change that. And, you know, she has a daughter about your daughter's age." 

It's not as if Agatha doesn't have friends, and that shouldn't make her parents look suddenly thoughtful, but it does. She wonders why. 

\-- 

 

First they sent Questor Von Smythe to Beetleburg; a day later, after getting her interim report, they sent a hunting party, three dozen strong, led by Lady-Hunter Tharkis. Zeetha isn't meant to be privy to her parents' intelligence meetings, but she wouldn't be much of a princess-candidate if that stopped her. 

She's never heard of _geisterdamen_ before, and what she hears makes her wish she knew where one was so she could stab them. But of course that's the point of the hunters.

Zeetha does, however, arrange to be there when the Beetleburg girl and her family turn up. They're an odd lot. A man and woman who move quietly for their size and have odd tan patterns for born-people; those must be her parents. A fellow with greyish skin and a hunched, shy posture, as tall as two of Zeetha standing on each other's shoulders, very obviously construct. Then the girl steps onto the dock, blinking through her glasses. Tall, gold-haired, practically quivering. Zeetha likes her already. She's trailed by a dark-skinned boy with hair almost as wild as Zeetha's father, and a tiny, freckled girl who looks around in open wonderment. If they're all blood relatives Zeetha will eat her hat. Well, would if she had one. She hasn't found the right enemy yet.

The good thing is, they're early, so Zeetha doesn't have to just lurk - she can appoint herself the Welcoming Committee. She strides out into the sun, pushing past a harried-looking messenger who's probably off to find her parents, and puts on her brightest grin. If they're the sort of Europans who get nervous around fangs, well, best they start getting over it now. "Welcome to Mechanicsburg!" she announces. None of them jump. Good. "I am Zeetha, daughter of Zantabraxus," which tends to get less funny looks than her father's name here, "and I offer you my hand in friendship. May no harm befall you under our roof."

"We're not under a roof," the boy points out.

"Good catch! But it's the traditional wording." She leans closer; the boy is squinting. "What's your name?"

"Nikolas Clay. Klaus."

"Like my dad! He has hair like yours too," she confides, "only it's even more of a mess."

By this point the golden-haired girl is struggling not to laugh. "I'm Agatha Clay," she says. "And this is my sister Sorina. And our parents, Adam and Lilith - " they straighten up a little, as if they were steeling themselves for battle - "and our friend Quince. What are those things on your back?"

"They're called sakhataras. They're for sword practice." She unslings them, and they clang just like swords and glint in the sun - adding the wire wraps really helped - and make a nice swish through the air as she swings them at the spot where Agatha was standing just until she jumped back with a yelp. "Ooh, good reflexes!" The girl's parents have shifted into defensive stances, and her mother has a hand under her jacket that wasn't before, and isn't that interesting? Zeetha gives them a salute with both sakhataras.

"Don't _scare_ me like that," Agatha says. She doesn't sound very scared; her breathing is already slowing. "I might have hit you."

"Not likely. You havn't been taught to fight, have you?" 

"No," her mother breaks in, "because it hardly seemed necessary until -" She pauses. "Is your father coming to meet us, Princess?"

Zeetha takes a moment to realize why she asks. Lilith Clay must have very good hearing, but the thump of Klaus Wulfenbach's boots is already there, on the edge of hearing. Zeetha would know it anywhere. She used to bounce on his back in time to those steady strides. "He'll be here soon." 

Wait. How did Lilith know it was _her father_ , when Zeetha could barely make out his tread over the random noise of the airdocks? 

But there's no time for thinking - he's there, already, bursting through the door and steps suddenly making the deckboards quiver like a drum. "Not unless it's on fire," he calls to someone behind him, and then turns, and sees the family waiting beside the courier ship - already a tangle of mooring lines and gas hoses - and, for a moment, his face goes still and cold with shock.

He covers it well, though. In a moment it's vanished beneath his usual restless irritation, and the break in his stride is barely a skip. "Ah, you must be the Clays," he calls out. "I trust your flight was uneventful? Come on, we should talk. Privately." 

"Yes," Lilith Clay says. "We should." She sounds quite cheerful about it; you have to watch her shoulders for the tension.

"Just you two, now. Zeetha? Why don't you show the rest of them the sights?" And he turns on his heel and strides away, waving an arm to beckon them along. 

In a few seconds Zeetha finds herself on the dock with three children and an oversized construct. And six airmen and twelve ground crew, but they're all busy, setting the rigging or recalibrating the z-gas or whatever it is they need to do. The visitors, though, look like they're not sure where they left their brains. Agatha recovers first, blinking and tossing her hair in the traditional perception-reset that it turns out most Europans know too. "Is he always like that?"

"Nah, sometimes he's just really mad, and then everybody runs for cover." Zeetha grins. "I don't think he likes it here."

"Oh."

"Come on, you heard him, let's go see the sights. There's a stand up by the Castle that does the _best_ gingerbread trilobites, want to try some? Mechanicsburg local specialty."

"But the bags," says the tall construct - Quince - in a surprisingly soft and breathy voice.

"Ground crew will put them somewhere safe. You don't have a house to drag them to yet. Why were you in such a hurry, anyway?"

"We're not supposed to talk about it," Klaus says. Klaus. Zeetha still has trouble with the idea of people called Klaus. She wonders if he'd mind being Nikolas instead.

Agatha rolls her eyes. "It's a little late for that, you know. Everyone is going to work out I'm a Spark sooner or later."

Well, that confirms her guess on who to pump for answers. Zeetha is glad of it. She liked Agatha straightaway, and she's not often wrong about people. As she leads them out of the docks, keeping up a steady stream of friendly touristy chatter, Zeetha finds herself thinking this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

\--


	7. 1885  Summer

#### 1885 - Summer

\--

There are plenty of discreet places for a private conversation in Paris. It's a rare coffeehouse that lacks back rooms available to valued customers, and of course there are subtler places - rental boathouses, badly-lit corners of the catacombs, dressmakers who will call in two customers at once for an absurdly long fitting. The problem with all such places is that in Paris, more literally than usual, the walls have ears. Anevka prefers to do her diplomatic work _en plein air_ , weather allowing, and trust the carriages and ducks to drown out the chance of spies. It does mean she and Dupree will be seen together, but one can hardly be blamed for who sits beside you on a park bench. Besides, it might be taken for an assignation. The other woman is fashionably dressed - in men's fashion, close-fitting trousers and a short red waistcoat that sets off her dark complexion nicely. That there are enough women in Paris who prefer trousers, whole tailor's shops have sprung up to serve them, has not saved them from certain particular assumptions about the objects of their passion, as people delicately put it. 

From what she knows of Bangladesh Dupree, Anevka suspects her only true passion is for gurgling victims. Anevka can sympathize.

"And he wants the Pirate Queen of the North to do it? Look," Dupree says, "your dad is a nutcase."

That would be a very unhelpful remark if Anevka didn't agree. "So is your mother. Does it matter?" 

That was a risk, but after a moment Dupree throws her head back and laughs. "I like you," she announces, and reaches over to steal one of Anevka's madelines. "But, you know, we've got a lot going on right now. Skifandrians to harass, freighters to nab - hostages aren't really a growth business, you know? They're tricky to transport. Tell me more. Who exactly do you need nabbed?"

Anevka clears her throat and looks away, like a demure young woman might when being flirted with outrageously. "That's why we're coming to you. We don't have names, just - qualifications." 

"Qualifications." 

"Female Sparks, under the age of thirty. The sooner after breakthrough, the better." 

Dupree whistles, low and long. "Tough order. There aren't a lot of female Sparks at all."

"We're more common than you'd think." Anevka allows herself a smile. That's something like a threat, especially from someone so young. "Most reliable estimates say the proportion doesn't change between the sexes. It's just that, well, young women are more vulnerable. Less likely to be in a university, completely ineligible for the Corbettites," although the current Pope of Belfast has made noises about a parallel order of sisters, "and more subject to various other pressures."

Dupree rolls her eyes. "If you wanted them for anything nice you wouldn't have come to us."

"We do insist they arrive living and without _permanent_ physical damage."

"What's your dad doing, starting a harem?" 

That grin is far too sharp and Anevka refuses to rise to the bait. "Can you pull that off, or are your people too bloodthirsty to steal anything not made of metal?"

Which should have been bait right back, but all Dupree does is steal another madeline, tossing it into the air to catch between her teeth like a performing wolf, and stretch out an arm as if she were an obnoxious theater companion trying to throw it over Anevka's shoulders without seeming to try. "Can you make it worth our while?

So that's how she's playing it. Fine. Her father asked Anevka to work this part out, and she carefully chose a figure just low enough to be insulting. "We're prepared to offer six thousand francs a head, _if_ you can act as our agents with complete discretion."

A duck squawks somewhere. The sun beams down, glimmering on the water. Around them everything is bright and beautiful. Then Dupree starts to laugh. They've been speaking in low voices, but she laughs so loud it gets looks from the young men with a picnic two willow trees down the shore. 

"Rare," she manages between laughs, "and precious," and twists her body and grabs Anevka's wrist to slam against the back of the bench, knee on her skirt. "I don't think we have a deal. Why shouldn't I just have my fun right here?"

Anevka presses the knife in her other hand against Dupree's navel until she must be able to feel it through the cloth, and lets that be her answer.

Dupree laughs again, softer this time. "There should be more girl sparks like you," she says. "Counteroffer. Run away with me. Join the fleet. We could use a madgirl. Better shoes and all the jewels you can wear."

The thought is - distracting. Fascinating, if Anevka's being honest with herself; she'd get more varied test subjects, and no complaints from Father if she damaged them. Or if she offended someone stuffy. Or put belladonna in Cousin Tweedle's dinner, as if he would get worse than a stomachache. But Anevka has bigger plans afoot, once a few inconvenient _men_ are out of the way.

She's not sure which of them leans in first, but the kiss is warm and sweet and long enough that anyone watching should be quite thouroghly convinced they met for an assignation. If she didn't know the dangers Anevka would be doing her best to make it true.

"Flattering," she says when they pull apart, and prods Dupree with the knife again. "But I have other plans."

"Right. That." The pirate flops down on the bench again, arms folded over her chest. "Well, if you ever have a nefarious plot that lets us set lots of things on fire, look me up."

That evening, Anevka attends the opera with her grandmother and grandfather - an acceptable but badly dressed version of Reichenbach's _Florizel and Perdita_. She pays it less attention than usual. Her father won't be able to secure the assistance of the Pirate Queen, Anevka made sure of that, but it seems that getting an alliance for herself might be possible. The Queen's fleet is small, but very effective; their harassment of the Skifandrians has drawn enough firepower away from the western front, Teufel still hasn't lost Buda. 

The Knights of Jove have divided loyalties, to put it delicately. Some of them look at a friend of the Heterodyne Boys who has made Mechanicsburg his capital, and see a target for the Storm King to take down - if her dubious cousin Tweedle ever bestirs himself to claim the throne. Not that Anevka intends to let him; he's first on her list of inconvenient men.

Second is her father. Ever since he invited that barmaid's red-haired boy to dinner Anevka has suspected that Lucrezia promised him a fresh body; he's vain enough to want one that looks alike. She's very glad she has no idea where the boy is, although she would have liked to thank him for having the sense to run away. 

Things get fuzzier after that. Grandfather she can manage around, if he doesn't drink himself to death first. Teufel will have to go, but his son she might elevate to the Knights and keep. Baron Wulfenbach, well, perhaps she can simply ship him back to Skifander. With all the Skifandrians she can round up - it won't be hard to set off a plague of xenophobia. Most of the Knights of Jove will live. Van Bulen will either support her with all his heart, or have a fit of conscience and die tragically in battle. Jean de Courcy can have heart failure in a brothel, after what he tried last Yule. 

She finds herself flush with delight at the thought. Her grandmother asks if she's feeling alright, and Anevka hastily unfolds her fan to hide her face. "I'm perfectly well," she whispers. "Just caught up in the show."

\--


	8. 1885 Autumn

#### 1885 - Autumn

\--

Agatha's lab (her very own lab! That she can use whenever she likes!) is on an awkward culdesac just off the Court of Gears, one of those places too small to turn a wagon around, but too industrial to just wall off with bollards. Once a month or so, some poor carter delivering to the snail warehouse next door gets stuck. Agatha offered to make a winch so the carts could back in, but was vetoed on the grounds of conspicuousness. The point of giving you _this_ lab, the Baron (Baron Klaus Wulfenbach! From the stories!) pointed out, is that nobody will know where it is.

It wasn't likely that anyone would get into, or above, Mechanicsburg to try anything. But still.

Agatha likes her lab, despite the awkwardness. There are big windows, and racks of tools and tubs of fittings - French and Skiff sizes, plus some variously-creative connectors; Zeetha had confided that the argument her parents had over measures had been one of the funniest things she'd ever seen. They'd finally thrown the question at a committee, and when the committee hadn't solved it in three months, at Zeetha as an exercise, and therefore it is now her friend's fault that she has to buy things with _maadi_ s but order wire in metres. At least there's no expectation Sparkwork be repairable, so she can get away with jamming in the wrong size fasteners. She's just sent Quince (her very own minion! Even if he's known her since she was six!) out for a new barrel of rivets, in fact, when Zeetha turns up with two giant sandwiches.

"You know it's gone three in the afternoon, right?" she says, to Agatha's befuddled look. The little clanks are scuttling across the floor and sometimes her boots, but she ignores them. "I met Quince three streets away and he said you hadn't had lunch. You'll make your mother worry. And mine." 

"I can take care of myself," Agatha says. She takes one of the sandwiches anyway, though, and lowers the Bench That Is Not Used For Chemicals from the ceiling. The little clanks line themselves up beneath it when she whistles at a particular frequency.

Zeetha makes a whistling noise too, of admiration. "Nice little things. Is this what you've been using all those springs for?"

"Most of them." Agatha takes a tentative nibble; last time Zeetha brought her lunch it had involved snake, which she claimed was a popular sandwich filling back in Skifander. This one just tastes like crab, though. "I can make them line up, or just stop dead where they are, or do one preset task, with a whistle. I have to open them up to change the task. They're not very smart."

"Huh. Will they do it if anyone whistles, or just you?"

"Anyone. I hope. Can you help me test it?"

Ten minutes later, Quince has brought the rivets and been sent away again for a set of pitchpipes. Their lunches sit forgotten - for someone who's not broken through yet Zeetha is awfully distractible with science. Then again, with her parents, it's only a matter of time. Right now, she's thwacking the floor repeatedly with her sakhataras, making one of the little clanks run through its danger-avoidance routines like a frightened rodent as it tries, desperately, to polish to floor. Agatha watches, beaming. "It's doing better than I expected," she announces.

"Pfaugh. Slippery little bugger." Zeetha straightens up, breathing a little hard. "Did you notice it was running zigzag patterns there to make it harder to hit?"

Agatha slowly says, "I did, but I didn't teach it that."

"Congratulations, then, you've built a clank the size of a rat with the brains of a fly." She looks down to the little brass hexapod, which is trying to nudge her boot aside with its polish rag. "And, apparently, no sense of fear."

"Fear would be counterproductive in clanks. To endow an artifact whose purpose oft includes facing dangers that might destroy it with a disinclination to do so on command would be to frustrate the purpose of our enterprise." Agatha does her best to do a Russian accent, but her best is terrible.

Zeetha just snorts. "Who are you quoting? He sounds like no fun."

"Doctor Vladimir Ivanovich Metzov. He was one of the Tsars' foremost experts on abstracted mechanical control modular devices. Clank brains," she translates when her friend starts to blink; Zeetha speaks Romanian and French but not always fluently. 

"Was."

"Three years ago he got trampled by a mecha-moose. Come on, let's try the self-winding procedure."

Agatha is proud of the self-winding procedure. The little clanks have their mainspring in the top of the crab body, a design she picked to make it last as long as possible, so to rewind they have to flip upright on two legs like coins on edge to meet the gears. They all have the same square winding socket, too, which Agatha made sure of by setting them all out before she fell into a fugue and then hiding most of the other plausible sockets, including the heads off her occtipal ratchet. She's learned to work around these problems. They catch a few clanks - the way their little legs wave makes Zeetha giggle - and slip the springs until they're almost dead. "They'll only stop to wind if they're not busy," Agatha says, and adjusts the screws on one before she sets it down. It scurries to the end of the table and begins picking up loose rivets.

Zeetha holds the clank she's still clutching out to Agatha. "What happens if you tell two of them to do the same thing? Do they fight?"

As it turns out, they behave as they don't see each other, get their legs tangled, and fall off the table. Once they get untangled, though, they race to the rewinder. The one that had to flips itself over and lost the race even waits for the first to finish winding. They're learning. Agatha is proud of them. Maybe not good enough to show Zantabraxus yet, but just give it a few months.

She doesn't expect to go back to the lab the next day - it's a study day, and her parents are pretty insistent about those even now she's just reading on her own, with occasional bouts of explaining things to her brother. But every day starts with training, and at the end while Agatha is still sprawled on the sand getting her breath back, Zeetha digs a clank out of the weight bag and flings it at her mother like a discus. 

Of course the Queen catches it, one-handed and by the foreleg. Good idea if it had been a crab, but right now it just hangs limply from her hand - the spring's completely unwound. "What's this?" 

"Something Agatha was working on, I thought you'd like to see it."

"And what does it do?" This time directed at Agatha, with just a hint of that crackle in the edge of her voice that occasionally reminds people the Queen is a powerful Spark. 

Which Agatha is glad of - it means she understands about getting caught up in an idea, and considers mental exercises for dropping yourself in and out of fugue a good thing to teach your _zumil_. But it's intimidating, too. "Um," she says. "Whatever I tell it too? But I have to show it how. It's not very smart." She'd abandoned the traditional voice-recognition models for the whistle code out of a sense that trying to teach it Romanian _and_ Skiff would be too much for such a tiny brain, but now she wonders if it would have been easier to deal with.

A few minutes of halting explanation later, Zantabraxus nods, a decision evidently reached. "I want to see them working. When you're cleaned up, go tell my secretary I'll be at your lab and to tell the Conte de Ferrugo to boil his head." Which will need some diplomatic translation, and probably rescheduling, but that sort of thing is why the Queen has a secretary. 

"See?" Zeetha says when her mother has swept out. "You should show her these things sooner. You get too nervous."

Agatha doesn't dignify that with a response. She's too busy thinking of all the ways the little clanks could go wrong in front of her _kolee_.

But they don't, and none of the more complicated tests she comes up with give them any trouble at all. The morning sun turns to dreary rain. The little clanks stack themselves into a tower, and do obstacle courses, and put together puzzles after only seeing the result. They're learning quicker.

Finally, the cuckoo clock rings for noon. Agatha almost drops her screwdriver at the sudden bright chime, and Zantabraxus does drop the panpipes, but apparently she meant to do it because she stands up and dusts off her hands. "May I take some back to my own lab?" she asks. "I want to see what else they can be taught." 

She says yes. She helps Zeetha wrap three of them in a bag, and watches her write _For The Queen_ in Skiff runes on a fourth. She shows that one a map of Mechanicsburg, traces a route with her finger, drops it out the door and watches it scuttle away in the right direction. Then she follows Zeetha and Zantabraxus into the secret tunnel that is the other reason her lab is _here_ , although it should really just be called a discreet tunnel, not secret, because they pass two j�gers and a harried-looking woman with a keg on the way, and there's a guard on the door to what used to be the Poisoner's Market and is now the Skifandrian Embassy. 

Agatha is thinking. 

Mostly what she's thinking is that she's finally come up with something _important_ , or will have once Zantabraxus does whatever she's thinking of that needs the crab clanks to - help build? Repair? Something like that. She never did, back in Beetleburg. The most interesting thing Beetle would let her get the parts for were new deathrays for the Ticking Guard. And here, she offered to have a go at repairing the Castle, she's pretty good with repairs on Sparkwork and that is _not_ typical for a Spark, but everyone had looked horrified and her mother had demanded a solemn promise not to set foot inside the Castle. Agatha had agreed with a list of caveats (unless the Queen ordered otherwise, unless it was a life-or-death emergency, unless she waited to be sixteen and was with a research team at least as well-armoured as the annual cave exploration teams, unless a Heterodyne came back and asked for her help). She's just been - trying things out. Looking for inspiration.

She's sure Zantabraxus didn't make Agatha her _zumil_ just out of distaste for the Geisterdamen. They did the public ceremony and everything, translated to Romanian because back then Agatha didn't speak a word of Skiff, because _kolee-dok-zumil_ means a lot of things but in this particular case, it especially means the wrath of the War Queen, and her army, will fall on anyone who hurts Agatha. It feels absurd sometimes. Even if she were the lost Heterodyne heir she surely wouldn't be worth all this fuss.

(She knew Adam and Lilith were constructs, of course, but it was still astonishing to find out exactly _which_ constructs. They asked the Baron to keep it quiet, and being an old friend he agreed and leaned on the J�gers to do likewise, and it still feels like too much of a coincidence to be real. But the Baron say it just confirms his theory that the Spark is due as much to environmental causes as genetics. He's started inviting Klaus and Sorina to his lab, in hopes it would encourage them to eventually break through.)

Agatha thinks, she has to do something spectacular to make all the trouble worthwhile. Maybe she's pulled it off this time.

Two weeks later, she's sure.

\--


	9. 1886 Spring

#### 1886 - Spring

\--

Gil didn't even tell her about the blister beetles. Fair enough, maybe his dad finally learned about military secrets. But then Bang asked for maybe some acid grenades and he hasn't even written back to say no, and just three days ago she lost a gunner to a swarm of the damned spinny-clanks, and she really wants to set something on fire. What's the point of having a fourteen-year-old Spark who thinks the sun shines out of your pussy if he can't even make some stupid whirligigs go boom for you? 

"Come _on_ ," she yells at a longshoreman with a box of grenades. "We're not paying you to stand around." Actually they're not paying him at all, he's a serf, but she gets a kick out of yelling it and he has the wit not to be witty back. She yells a little more at the envelope crew, because even if airships don't have tides to beat there's a storm coming in and they want to beat it to the �resund, and that is not looking good right now. She can already see the clouds. They have maybe ten minutes to get in the air and they're still loading and Bang would just shoot someone to make a point, she's in that kind of mood, except then whoever she shot couldn't _keep loading_. 

Eight minutes, and the last of the ordnance is onboard, and Bang stalks up the catwalk after it. Her first mate is waiting on the bridge, looking fretful. The _Deathstalker_ is a good ship, but she's twenty years old and needs a new envelope, and if they're very lucky they'll make enough this trip to leave her in Orkney to get one. "Status?" she snaps.

"Ordnance loaded, fuel tanks at three tons and still loading. Envelope at eighty muskels. All crew on board. Wind west-northwe-"

_BOOOOM_ from starboard.

Bang only likes that noise when it's her fault. She looks out - black smear on the deck, burst pattern. Fuck. Off the bridge and a jump out the sally port, it's faster. There's a low awful whooshing noise, and already someone yelling, sounds like Captain Macafon, good, she's alive. There's bits of shrapnel everywhere. Bad. The black streaks go up the side of the _Calamari_ to the great big rip in the envelope, and the multiple smaller rips where other bits of the frag shell must have hit. Probably repairable, but not fast, she's out of the mission. Bang lets the back of her head work on that while she looks at the rest. Crack in the deck, slight structural damage, not her problem. Two longshoremen lying in bloody heaps, a third one two yards away, gibbering. "I can't believe it I can't believe it it's a miracle I should be dead right now - " She shoots him. That solves that problem. 

The rest of the longshoremen just keep staring. Somebody whimpers but she can't tell who. 

Captain Macafon has run out of breath and is sort of trying to glare the crater into submission. "Sorry, Dupree, I think they just dropped it," she says. "But it shouldn't have gone off like that. Bad fuse." 

"Right, go check the whole batch when we're gone, stab at will," Bang says. The wheels in the back of her brain have ground out an answer. They can still do this with two ships. She raises her voice to a carrying shout. "Calamari Gun Team! take your rifles, get on the Pink Pearl!" The _Pink Pearl_ is short of cannon, and at least the rifles can harass. "Calamari Boarding Team, get on the Deathstalker! Move it, bitches, five minutes to liftoff!"

For once she's not surrounded by idiots. The deck crew hustle out of the way, the _Calamari_ crew start to hurry out of the ship even as the envelope starts to tilt sideways like the world's biggest collapsing souffl�. They can repair it. Probably. But by the nine hells they need treasure. This better work. She storms back to the sally port, and accepts a hand up from her navigator. All that soot and blood would be pretty if it weren't on _her landing deck._ Four minutes. Four minutes and a storm to outrun. Bang thumps into the captain's chair and fingers the reassuring hilt of her cutlass. They'll be on their way soon, and things will go boom, and she has a bunch of new contingency plans to work up on the fly and a boarding team to brief on signals so there's none of that hilarious stuff with them running into each other falling out of the sky, there's culling the idiots and there's the idiots taking good crew after them. And she has a twenty-year-old ship that needs a new envelope. Well. _Something's_ going to go boom, whatever happens. 

\--

"I don't know. It's not like they don't have Sparks. They have dozens." Gil rubs his eyes. He's so tired the landing lights hurt his eyes from inside the mess tent, and it's not even for a good reason, he's just been sitting up fretting. "Maybe it's someone new. They didn't sign it?"

"There's no writing anywhere on the damned things."

"Maybe they're a collaboration."

Petrus Teufel leans back in his oversize chair and folds his arms, looking for all the world like a disgruntled schoolteacher. "If Wulfenbach's found a way to make Sparks get along well enough to work on the same clanks, and humble enough not to sign all their names to it, the man's a damned miracle-worker and we might as well chuck it all and turn to sheep-herding."

Sheep-herding. That's a nice, relaxing thought. Long hours spent wandering around outdoors with no particular destination, a few dogs to keep you company, plenty of milk ... There's a sheep on the spit in the middle of the tent, spun gently by the little heat-engine Gil made when he was seven, and for a moment he feels an irrational wish to trade places with whoever brought it up. Or maybe he could run away and join up with the Pirate Queen. Bangladesh has talked about what she calls the Boffin Crew, she says a Spark could take over them in ten minutes and her mother wouldn't mind at all, and if he were head of the Boffin Crew he could actually show off his inventions to Bang in person when she came back from raids. Maybe she'd be so impressed she'd hug him. Or give him pretty things from her fresh loot, jeweled rings and golden chains, and ask him to take his shirt off so she can see how they look against his skin, and - that's a distracting thought. He puts it aside for later, when he's alone in bed. For now he takes another drink to hide his confusion. 

After a long silence, his father mutters, "We don't even know where everyone in Mechanicsburg works, or we could send in a commando team."

A sacrificial team, but that might be cheap given how _useless_ the whirligigs have made half their arsenal. Even their old namesake standby hasn't been of much use. The whirligigs seem to see right through the black mist. And they can't be poisoned, or break out in hives, or any other of the very human reactions that have served the Raiders so well. Bang wanted acid, but Gil isn't convinced that's the right approach at all. Acid can be so slow. Maybe some kind of sticky string to foul the blades. 

They need more information. Well, that's a constant. Gil frets over it for a bit, while more Raiders drift in and help themselves to bowls of stew, and somebody throws more wood under the sheep. 

"Have we caught one whole?" he suddenly asks.

Petrus gives a tired smile. "We're trying. I've issued the puffleaders with steel nets. But, well, they're Sparkwork." 

And even another Spark often can't make headway with reverse-engineering Sparkwork, and besides, his father is busy. Busier than ever, trying to make not enough ships and not enough warriors into a scalpel against a Skifandrian army that suddenly isn't sending its warriors to the battlefield anymore, except the officers in armored wagons to direct the swarms of clanks. It's like those old fairytales about the sorcerer who hides his heart in a box in a cave, to keep it from his enemies. And Petrus Teufel is probably the best strategist in Europa - but Baron Wulfenbach is a close second. That's why the war has dragged on so long, why the front keeps drifting back to the Danube despite all the brilliant victories.

Of course, they do have _two_ Sparks.

"I can take that over," he says. "Tell them to leave any captured whirligigs at my bench in the Mechanical Lab." He and his father get along amazingly well, for Sparks - they can even share tools - but Petrus isn't so reckless as not to give him his own workspace. 

That gets a worried look. "Do you have time? With all the brewing -"

"The algae-based work is technically self-sustaining, we can hand it over to Captain Fern's people. And I need to learn economics someday, but that's the kind of thing I can learn on the job if I have to. Not like you're retiring soon, right?" It's vanishingly unlikely, in fact, that Petrus will quit before he dies. Name Gil his co-ruler, yes, that he's been promised - but not quit. "Let me make things easier for you?"

In the firelight Petrus looks very tired. The shadows bring out the dark circles under his eyes, and the yellow light makes the streaks of silver at his temples stand out against his hair. Maybe they shouldn't be having this conversation out here, where anyone can hear. Captain Wolfram is right over there getting stew, and she's as nakedly ambitious as a Raider captain can be without getting stabbed at a strategy meeting. (Or Zoing-stung, although that was just the once.) Their head cook, busily checking the sheep, is completely loyal but a fretful gossip. There are a dozen raiders and mechanics at the other end of the long table, and who knows what they've heard, or who they'd talk to? Gil wishes for the comforting weight of Zoing against his side, but Zoing is molting in a tank in the Volatiles Lab. Zoing can't keep him safe.

"Alright. I'll tell them. Assuming we get any samples at all, the damned things are clever. I don't know where Wulfenbach is getting all the steel - " - and he's off again, on a rant that's a little more of a ramble than usual. Gil lets it wash over him, and sips his coffee, and tries to convince himself he hasn't just done something very stupid.

\--

The first sample turns up while Zoing's new carapace is still soft. It's delivered by a battered, slightly-singed transport pilot, with the hollow look of someone whose friends recently turned into casualties. Gil offers his thanks and sympathies quietly, and waits until the pilot is out of earshot to start freeing the thing from its net.

It struggles, of course, but he was ready for that; he holds it down one-handed while he slams three bent rods through its rotors, pinning it to the table like a vast specimen butterfly an arms-length wide. It keeps trying to wiggle the rotors, at first, but after a few minutes it gives up, lying still with only the occasional twitch. Gil fetches his prybars. "Ready, Zoing?"

"Penenpaper," Zoing declares, and holds up the notebook in his hardening claws. 

"Right. Let's get the damn thing open."

There are no obvious fasteners, and e eventually Gil gives up and just pries off the casing - it takes all his strength. No wonder, there were internal clips, and folded inside the casing - Gil gasps, and then has to slam the casing shut again before it can launch itself out. "Get me a hammer!" Zoing drops the notebook and scurries to the tool rack. He grabs the clawhammer, which wasn't what Gil meant but it will do, and flings it handle-first, bad habit but that's not important right now, what's important is catching it and slamming it down as he pulls the casing away and trapping the little clank inside. 

There's noise behind him. Gil blinks a few times and tries to resolve it. Voice. "Master Teufel? Are you alright?"

Oh. Right. "Fine," he tells the lab assistant, "but I think this will take extra hands. Go get some more steel rods and come back here." They can hold the damn thing down while he takes it to pieces. All three of them, gratifyingly, scurry away without a pause.

Zoing has already retrieved the notebook and is busily scribbling in it. At least someone here has a clear head. Gil's certainly losing his.

\--

A month and five dissections later Gil still doesn't know how the little pilot-clanks of the whirligigs work. He has, however, discovered that their ceramic rotors are vulnerable to airborne azythric acid. That's the important thing. They can be fought against. Everything else can wait.

\--


	10. 1886 Summer

#### 1886 - Summer

\--

On the north edge of the Carpathians, where Vlach shades into Ruthene, the circus picks up another fortuneteller. She's a tall woman, wavy black hair and a charming grin, and Tarvek finds himself twitching whenever he looks at her. "Awww," Lars says once he notices. "Finally noticing a girl?"

"Shut it, new boy." Tarvek crosses his arms and tries not to look like he's sulking.   
It's well past midnight, he should be asleep, but it's a nice night and he doesn't want to impose his bad mood on Tinka. "I just don't want her taking my job."

"Probably she won't, we can just switch Moxana to chess. And she can't run lights." Lars dusts his hands off, as if that settles it beyond the chance of argument. His next words are softer, though. "Really, nobody's going to throw you out to make room for Olga. Is something else bothering you?"

If he's lucky, the firelight is hiding his blush. "There shouldn't be. I don't know. Do you ever get the feeling - " He breaks off, waving his hands in a distant attempt to shake the concept loose. "The feeling of impending dread? For no good reason at all?"

"Not really. Usually it's leftover dread, for me." Lars grins as if it weren't important. 

Right, the panic attacks. It's a miracle he hasn't yet returned one of Taki's Calming Pies with a tree branch to the face. "That's different," Tarvek mutters. "That has a reason, it's not like adrenaline just goes away when you don't need it anymore."

Lars shrugs. "So yours doesn't?"

"No! Or I could do something about it!"

Lars reaches over to ruffle his hair. It's such a familiar, familial gesture that Tarvek feels himself scowling in a way he really should have given up years ago. He's almost fourteen, dammit, even if he still has a boy's voice. But by now the scowl is a habit. "Well," Lars says. "If something goes wrong and we _can_ help, we will, you know? We like you."

"Who's _we_?"

"Oh, me and Abner, and the Countess - she's hard when she has to be, but not if she doesn't, you know? Professor Therm. Jean Chandon - I think playing Barry Heterodyne is growing on him. Dame Aedith's always up for a righteous cause." Lars shrugs. "And Moxana and Tinka, of course."

Tarvek looks over, eyes narrowing in suspicion. "They're clanks," he puts forward. 

"We know that," Lars says. "And I think by now we all know what that means."

Tarvek rubs his eyes. Maybe he _is_ hitting puberty early, that would explain the mood swings. "I should go get some sleep," he says, as if he hasn't been staying up past two since he was old enough to be trusted with a full tray of glasses. He had to. To help his mother. Occasionally he finds himself regretting that he never wrote to his mother to let her know he was safe, never visited when the circus passed through Sturmhalten, but spent the days hiding in Master Payne's wagon and hoping nobody, in the intervening years, had drawn conclusions about exactly when he vanished. He'd given up on family, and he doesn't deserve to have Lars treat him like a little brother. "It'll all look better in the morning."

"It usually does," Lars offers, as cheerful and philosophical as ever. "Abner should be here for second watch any minute. Want company?"

Tarvek rolls his eyes. "I grant Tinka's pretty, but I thought you liked them human." 

"Ah, but the lovely Olga has rebuffed my advances. And here we are in the wilderness." He spreads his arms in dramatic demonstration. "Not a town girl in sight, and I won't turn up in Splachtza until two nights from now. Your floor's just as comfortable as the ground."

The Muses don't sleep, as such, but they go quiescent. Moxana sits with head bowed at her game table, and Tinka with knees drawn up on the chest of hats, beside her. They don't react to his footsteps, or the creak as he rolls his blankets out atop the stack of doors. He pulls down some cloaks for Lars, and in a few minutes the other man is fast asleep, breath catching in something that's not quite a snore.

Tarvek doesn't sleep. He's too busy thinking. 

Well, fretting, if he's being honest. It doesn't help. The sensible thing would be to leave, wait for the next town with a Corbettite terminal and take the next train to - well, there's the trouble. Paris? England? His French is passable, good enough to get a job at a pub, but he'd go mad without science to work on. 

And what about Moxana? Will Olga treat her with respect? They've worked together for almost five years, now, and the thought of leaving her is unexpectedly wrenching. Tinka doesn't talk about it, but Tarvek thinks they're - lonely, inasmuch as the term can apply to clanks. Reluctant to lose anyone again.

He can't leave just because of a feeling of impending doom. He'll just have to muddle through and hope.

\--

The light angling into her bedroom is just hitting the nine-o-clock line painted across her floorboards when Agatha wakes up. The house is quiet; she takes a while to register it. Then she finds herself flinging clothes on in a panic, frantically hunting for her glasses before, at last, finding them on her nose. How tired was she last night? She remembers coming home so late the lab guard had insisted on walking her home, which she might have argued about - all the monsters in Mechanicsburg work for the Baron, now - except that she still wakes up sometimes from dreams of giant white spiders. Is there time for breakfast? She decides halfway down the stairs she should at least get a sandwich to eat in the lab, morning training being a lost cause, and ducks into the kitchen.

Adam and Lilith are at the kitchen table, still with coffee mugs in front of them, looking completely unconcerned.

"Sit down, dear," her mother says, as Agatha tries to catch her breath. "I told that nice lady who brought you home last night to make sure you weren't expected at morning practice." 

"I should still be in the _lab,_ " Agatha answers, but she sits down.

Adam reaches over to pat her hair, then leans his head against his folded hands, expression changing to a soft smile.

"I have work to do! It's important!"

He holds up three fingers, and twists them as if turning an invisible screwdriver.

"So I'm still responsible for a third of them. And Lady Chenshi isn't fast enough, and Professor Mezzasalma's only work if he gives them an extra set of legs, and - " She breaks off, because Lilith has just set a teacup in front of her. It's still steaming. She must have left the kettle running since Klaus and Sorina left for school. Well, that's one nice thing about Mechanicsburg, the heating is all automatic and nobody has to get wood for cooking. Agatha gulps it down gratefully. 

"You can work faster if you're well-rested," Lilith suggests. "I'm sure the War Queen doesn't want her clank helicopters missing bolts. Or her _zumil_ collapsing from exhaustion."

The tea is heating her up from inside, and the smell of mint clears out some of the cobwebs that her wake-up panic had left in Agatha's brain. "I'm not even making the helicopters," she points out. "They have mechanics for that. I'm just making the brains."

"Then make sure they're good ones."

By the time Agatha gets to the labs she almost feels normal. Someone must have told them not to expect her, because only two of her minions are there, stamping out casings with unhurried regularity, and the rotor samples she asked for yesterday are still on a rod beside the door. 

She _will_ figure out a way to make them impervious to acid damage. When she has a little time. The memory of yesterday afternoon is still clear in her mind - the sudden noise of a landing, Zantabraxus running out to see, the tired look of the two women who slumped out of the flyer. And the third, grinning through her bruises, who held up a relay mirror like it was a Raider's severed head, cracked through and with a whirligig-leg still sticking out the side. The sheer _relief_ on her kolee's face when the whistles of two more flyers sounded overhead. 

They have to keep turning out clanks. Clanks are expendable.

\--


	11. 1886 Autumn

#### 1886 - Autumn

\--

Buda is cold enough that his breath leaves clouds in the air. Tarvek contemplates the merits of adding mist generators to Moxana's tent, but decides against it; there's enough mist around already. He settles for putting up some extra glowlamps, left over from an over-ambitious version of _Fog Merchant_ , and throwing incense on the heater. Still, they're drawing less business than usual. He actually has to wait between customers, and after a particularly long gap, the next person through the door is Dame Aedith. He lets the persona drop; two stage voices in one tent would give him a headache. "What's going on out there?"

"Nothing," Aedith says, arms folded. "'Tis curious."

"There isn't another show on the other side of town, or something?"

"If there is they've not advertised it. I blame the weather." She folds her arms, looking indignant. "Tonight will not be fit for man nor beast, but I expect to see at least one vampire in the audience. Have you created that heat sensor you spoke of?" 

"Afraid not, I can't get the parts." Tarvek half-shrugs. It wouldn't be a bad idea, for hunting vampires, but he's more convinced of the existence of innocent cold-blooded constructs than of vamipires, and they do _not_ want a repeat of that incident with the watch-clank. He's struck by a better idea, though. "Are you busy tomorrow morning? We could go to J�nos-piac, the shops might have good secondhand mechanical. I need some new brass anyway." And with luck he can put together enough parts to create something that looks effective and completely fails to work, and with even more luck, when Aedith notices he can claim it got broken and spend another season looking for parts. 

Aedith brightens at the idea, at least. "Not in the least, barring a suddent request for aid. We should bring Rivet as well; she thinks new piston fluid might help Baba Yaga." 

"Absolutely. I'll ask her later." And bring her in on the conspiracy. Rivet is reliable. 

"We should waste no time. Pannonia is well known as a haunt of - " She breaks off, as the tent flap opens up, and straightens into something resembling Mysterious And Deadly. "Welcome, stranger." 

Only it's not a stranger. Tarvek remembers him. The last time he saw this boy, he was shorter, not so muscular, nor with that distracting set to his jaw and - he will not make a noise. The little construct that rode on the boy's back is walking beside him, as high as his knees, and has acquired a tiny monk's robe that shadows what passes for his face, but does nothing to hide the long glimmering tail. Tarvek suspected scorpion-based, before, and now he's sure. He tries to gather his wits. They've been back through Buda - once, of the two years since? Easy enough to miss, no reason to remember. "Welcome," he says as well. "What mysteries do you seek to explore?"

The boy scowls. It doesn't suit him. "Three for the price of one, is it?" 

"The vibrations of the aether are disturbed here," Aedith says - good thing she can improvise. "I am but aiding in determination of resonances." 

"Right. Well, it was actually Moxana I wanted to talk to. I brought money this time." He pulls out a coin and thumps it on to the table as if it's done him a personal injury. Their eyes follow it involuntarily. Gold twelve-maadi pieces have a way of drawing the eye. It's the way they're so thick, more like someone took a sphere and squoze it slightly flat than like a Europan coin. 

Tarvek swallows, but before he can move Moxana flicks a hand out and makes it vanish. When did she open her eyes? It's her habit to sit still, hands folded, between customers, and come to life only when Tarvek starts his pitch. When they're running games and not fortunes it makes more sense for her to be more clankish. And, well, they are meant to be running games now. The chessboard is still out. The boy doesn't seem to notice. "Tell me," he says, looking Moxana in the eyes. "Who's the new Spark in Mechanicsburg, and how can I stop them?" 

There's a long silence. Aedith finally breaks it. "You must understand, the aetheric sensitivies can render any detailed assistance - " 

"Quiet," the boy snaps out. "I wasn't asking _you_ , madame. I was asking the Muse. You're too good to be just some fake. Who made you? Are they making the whirligigs now?" 

"She's mine," Tarvek lies, voice cracking a little. He realizes even as he says it that he's dropped his stage voice, and also that he's terrified of this boy, with his quiet anger and his attendant scorpion, who presses against his legs like an affectionate dog and wags its stinger, bright eye reflecting the glowlights. "Well, mostly, I made a lot of improvements, but it's not like she's Sparkwork or anything, there's this gap under the table - someone really small can - " 

"You're lying." 

"Prove it." 

"Prove you made her or I'll make you sorry." The boy is leaning in close, hands clenched, shoulders tense. Bracing for a blow. 

"Make no threats against my friend," Aeidth hisses, and her silver dagger is suddenly pressed to the boy's chin.

If he weren't quivering with terror Tarvek would be slumping to the table in despair. Calming, you're supposed to be _calming_ with angry marks. Olga's tent is nearest. Would she hear if he yelped loud enough? What if she's in the middle of a reading? Fortunetellers should stick together, shouldn't they? He settles for holding his breath, which isn't hard. 

"Ah," the boy says. He leans back, very slightly. "Ah, I apologize. And perhaps you should back away very slowly, because I also have a friend." 

The construct, Tarvek notes from the quiet distant place his mind has retreated to, is next to Aedith's leg. It could probably hit her in the femoral artery. Its tail is long enough. Aedith, very slowly, pulls away and slots the dagger back into its sheath. 

Tarvek forces himself to let out a breath. "I really don't know who started her," he says. "Master Payne found her in a ruined barn. Before I joined the circus." 

They look over at Moxana's chess - no. At the green baize table, because she must have flipped it over while they were distracted. And laid out, in the traditional fan shape, are six cards. Tarvek takes another careful breath. Maybe this can be salvaged. The construct has given up on Aedith, at least, and is back on the boy's back, peering over his shoulder with antennae waving lke a curious cat. It makes a noise that might, with some charity, be "Wow". Can it think? Should he even be thinking of it as 'it'? Well, that's not the important thing to think about now. Right now, he has to improvise. He doesn't know what Moxana's thinking, but Tarvek very much wants this boy to go away with the impression that she's the product of a lucky charlatan, just because he apparently thought to _ask_ otherwise and he's up to something, what's a whirligig, why would a boy Tarvek's age care about them? Is that - is that _his_ scorpion? Is the boy a Spark? Tarvek would have said he was too young, but, well, he remembers very clearly being too young himself. Fear does strange things to the brain. Who is this - no, that's not what Tarvek has to worry about right now. He has to think. And then, or even during, what he has to do is _lie_. 

Vauge, unactionable, unhelpful. Right.

He flips over the first card. "The Device," he whispers, because doing his usual stage voice isn't likely enough to try right now. "Whatever you're hoping to accomplish, you'll do it by technical skill. The answer is exactly what you think." 

The boy rolls his eyes. "I knew that. Can you be any more specific?" 

"The cards aren't really meant to be specific." 

"Well, can you give her a notebook?" 

"Not and make her write in it," Tarvek mutters. He's tried. He had to try, and it's resulted in occasional sketches, but apparently Moxana just isn't built to output words. Tinka would interpret for her, sometimes. Where's - is Tinka alright? No, right now he can't help that. He flips the second card and begins to blather. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Aedith backing away, slipping out of the tent. Gone to get help. Good. 

It's not until the cards are put back away and Moxana has gone back to her quiet pose that the boy leans down and, quite casually, as if he had a right, pulls open the table. Tarvek bites back a noise of affront, and settles for, "Those are very delicate mechanisms, you know."

"I know." The boy shuts it, gently enough. "Not nearly enough of them, mind you. Have you ever checked her for a maker's mark?" 

Tarvek lies, "I even went over the inside of the casing with ultraviolet. Nothing." There isn't, he's sure, Van Rijn felt his work was enough warrant for itself. Anyone who cared would _recognize_ it. Oh, there's the fluer-de-lis, but that was for the King. And any faker would know to add it. 

For a moment the boy gives him a stormy look as if he's about to accuse him of lying again, but then it fades and he just sighs and gets to his feet. "Somehow that doesn't surprise me." 

"Uh." He should have a better response. He should say, _Well met, seeker of truth_ or _The data indicate that all will be well_ or one of his other customer-soothing phrases. 

"Come on, Zoing." And the boy turns and stalks out of the tent. His construct scuttles after him, tail lashing back and forth. 

Tarvek considers for a moment. Then he walks over behind Moxana, leans against the back of her chair, and lets himself slump to the floor, where he can't be seen from the tent opening. Does he really need to stay open any longer? It must be getting late, right? He should close up and get something to eat before the lighting check. Yes. That would be the sensible thing. Go find Aeidth and let her know he's fine, go find Rivet and plan tomorrow's shopping expedition. 

There's someone coming in, though. Damn. Can he stand up without making noise and do a dramatic reveal? 

"Come on out, lad," says Master Payne. "I sent them away. They won't be back." 

Oh. Good. 

\-- 

Lars comes back in the early morning, feeling cheerful despite the bad turnout at last night's show. He likes Buda. There's a young widow with a bakery, and she always sends him back with yesterday's unsold pastries, which makes him very popular at breakfast.

Breakfast won't be for a few hours, though, not in town. Getting into the wagon without waking Abner is a lost cause, so he leaves the basket on the steps and wanders over to Rivet's wagon to see if Olga is there and, if she is, if she still wants help mending her High Priestess costume. 

She is, she does, and he spends a peaceful hour holding seams together and chatting before the distant smell of oatmeal begins to drift over the camp.

On the way back he retrieves the pastries. Olga accepts hers with a polite nod, and somehow contrives to eat it without getting jam on her fingers. 

Half the circus is already gathered around the fire, talking quietly or sipping tea. Otto is sharpening someone's dagger, not his own. Jean Chandon, who usually isn't awake this early, has an oversized mug and a quietly murderous expression. Tarvek, also a strange sight at this hour, is talking intently to Rivet; as Lars gets closer he can make out the words, but they're words like 'tensile stress' and 'thermoreactive' and 'metallurgical tolerances' and he doesn't actually _understand_ any better. He offers a croissant to Dame Aedith, who's sitting between them looking equally confused. Rivet looks up, and grins at him. "Good morning. You're not leaving after breakfast, are you?"

"No, not until tomorrow. Why?" He hands her the last croissant, then a blueberry scone to Tarvek. 

"We're going shopping. We might need a pack mule." 

"It would be my honour, ladies. And gentleman. What are you shopping for? Should we bring a handcart?"

"No - small instruments, mostly, but I do want a new tub of grease."

There's an rumbling noise and a crash, from the rough direction of the caravan gate. They all glance over - it's followed up with angry yelling - then go back to their pastries, except Tarvek, who's dropped his. He picks it up and tries to brush it clean, muttering under his breath, eyes wide. That's - odd. Lars cautiously asks, "Are you alright?"

"The lad had an encounter with an ill-tempered customer last night," Aedith informs him. "'Twas more of a strain on his nerves than we -" She breaks off, because the yelling is closer. "What is that accursed noise?"

Lars doesn't have a feel for bad towns, not like Master Payne does, or Abner seems to be developing. But he has a very bad feeling now. 

And a moment later, it's justified, because the source of the yelling - Abner - rounds the corner, followed by the cause of the yelling: four tall burly men in the long black jackets that pass for a Raider uniform, and a boy of maybe fourteen, in a short black jacket with gold piping, a - a thing with antennae, Lar's mind skitters away from giving it more definition than that - scuttering at his feet. Abner is shouting, "What the - what do you want?" 

Astonishingly enough, it's the boy who answers. "We want the clank known as Moxana," he says, as if it were a perfectly reasonable request. "Bring her out and no one will be harmed.

Aedith is scowling, hand on her dagger hilt. Tarvek has dropped the scone and - is standing up, saying in a rush, "Lars thank you for offering it was nice to think about," and striding over to the intruders. Offering? What has Lars ever offered, except help gainst whatever - oh. Whatever strange threat he had a bad feeling about, except that this is a threat to Moxana, not Tarvek.

But Tarvek is saying, "We'll go with you, we won't argue, just don't shoot anyone." 

The damned self-sacrificial idiot. Even if they were here to grab, oh, Rivet, it would be pointless to go with her. 

But he's already hurrying away to the props wagon. The boys spins and follows him, the - thing - goes _skreeeee_ and follows, and two of the hulking soldiers thump after. The remaining two fall in back to back, pulling their muskets forward even if they're not exactly pointing them at anyone. 

Lars thinks he's discovering a new way of having a panic attack: still and silent, too terrified even to breathe, because breathing might attract attention. It's not fair. This isn't over, except as much as it was over when the boy walked in. Who the hell is he?

He can't hold his breath forever, so he settles for shallow, careful breaths. People are moving, asking each other questions in low voices, gulping their tea with the quiet intensity of people not sure if there will be an explosion before they reach the end of the mug. Master Payne appears, glowering like a thundercloud. Someone tries to explain to him. Aedith reaches out and rests her hand on Lars' back, and it's oddly reassuring even if he knows she's doing it to keep herself from drawing her dagger. 

Eventually - after too long - they reappear. The boy first, looking grim. Two soldiers carrying Moxana between them, looking more like servants with a sedan chair than guards with a prisoner, from her calm stillness. And Tarvek, tool case on his shoulder, face unreadable. 

The other rwo soldiers fall in behind, and they troop away, still unspeaking.

It's not until the noise of a gate creaking interrupts that Master Payne strides up to the fire, glower firmly in place. "Alright, everyone," he calls out. "Step lively! Break camp! I want us out the gate in fifteen minutes!"

"Er," Abner offers, "are you sure that's a good -"

"I want us gone before _they come back,_ " Payne growls, and Lars is almost sure the orange glow is entirely in his imagination.

\--


	12. 1887 Spring

#### 1887 - Spring

\--

"You're doing what?" 

His voice cracks on the last word, but Gil's father doesn't remark on it. All he does is sigh, the noise of a man who's spent too long sleepless on the same question. "It's not as stupid as it looks," he says. "Do you think we should send Clement or Wolfram to negotiate?"

"Neither," Gil tells him flatly. "He's too trigger-happy, she's too likely to sell us out. Send Merano. Or better yet, don't send anyone, it's Vapnoople, you can't see the belfry for the bats!" 

"I would have loved to send Merano." Petrus grimaces, and plucks an envelope from his desk. "This arrived a little after noon."

Gil reads it. Three octavo pages of lightweight paper. It was written in a hurry by someone who had bad handwriting even going slow, but there's no creative misreading he can apply that keeps it from bearing the bitter information that their Third Ghost Captain has been feeding information to Wulfenbach for the past year. 

"Yes, that's about what I thought," his father says, which is when Gil realizes he's been cursing aloud for the last two paragraphs. 

He sets the paper down before he can crumple it. This is a problem, but it's not an intractable problem. They'll have to recheck a year's worth of intelligence, figure out what Wulfenbach knows now that will have to change. They can do that. Petrus Teufel always has backup strategies. "Do the cloud-captains know?"

"Not yet. I've called a meeting for tomorrow. If we're very lucky, Merano will come back tonight without knowing about - this, and we can let everyone have a turn."

It's a disloyal thought, but Gil finds himself hoping that Merano doesn't come back. That, or does something stupid like try to take Gil hostage at the meeting to get out alive - it's not like scorpion venom is an _easy_ way to go, but at least it's fast, and doesn't leave a mess, because the last time they let everybody have a go at a traitor they had to burn down the tent afterwards. Gil still feels a little sick at the memory. He doesn't know why - it's not like enhancing their soldiers or messing around with biological compounds makes him sick, and sometimes that smells a lot worse. 

"Well, if not, I think you should keep Clement for the hunt," he says, trying to sound casual. Clement doesn't believe in taking prisoners. "Wolfram might not get the best agreement with Vapnoople, but she'll get one. What's he offering, anyway? Has he got the mammoths working?"

"He's given up on that. Went for something simpler. Variant on sparkhounds, apparently." He grins, folding his arms. "He also has an apprentice. Fellow called Martellus von Blitzengaard. Sound familiar?"

It does, a little, but Gil has to concentrate to remember why. "I thought the Fifty Families didn't approve of Sparks."

"No, but the Twenty-three Surviving Families don't have much choice, do they? Those lunatics up in Balan's Gap married into the Spark a hundred years back. Isn't that why your little friend ran off?" He waves in the approximate direction of the Mechanical Lab, where even now Tarvek is probably wondering why Gil never came back from supper. "Wulfenbach's got it, and him they _have_ to deal with. And they do. Ever since the Other War they've been running around like a flock of frightened ducks." Petrus smirks. He hates the Fifty Families just a little more than you'd expect, for the son of a chimneysweep. "And one of their precious little heirs is hanging around with Dmitri Vapnoople, listening to everything he says? Let's drop a few words in his ear."

"Ah. So this is _political._ "

"It's all political, son. I wish it weren't." His father leans back in his chair and waves an imperious hand at his desk, the scattered papers and wooden paper-cases sitting open, the map of Europa tacked across the middle. More of it is colored in washed-out-grey now than there was five years ago, but the Skifandrian green is growing, too. Gil always shivers when he looks at it. So much he'll have to look after - from Buda almost to Paris, Vienna long since picked out with an X to mark the ending of its siege, south to the yellow blot on the edge of the Adriatic where no one is quite stupid enough to challenge the Golden Doge or his protectorates. Vapnoople's county is marked in the red of a potential ally, a smear like a papercut-fingerprint just far enough from Wittenburg not to be a threat.  
Petrus half-smiles. "But I wouldn't trade it."

"What, you don't miss cavorting around Europa? Grabbing all the gold and never coming back to deal with the angry mobs?" They still cavort, inasmuch as they keep moving the camp, but coming back to pacify angry mobs is pretty much the _definition_ of an empire.

But Petrus doesn't seem nostalgic. "I chose this," he says quietly, and then, more forcefully, "I chose you, and I intend to leave you an empire worth the name." 

Gil never knows what to say, when his father gets sentimental. He doesn't think protesting that he's not worth the effort would go over well, and 'thank you' seems inadequate. Gil knows exactly how lucky he is.

He settles, as he usually does, for wordless affection and distraction - presses his hands over Petrus's and asks, "Fancy a round of chess?"

\--

The Mechanical Lab is quiet after supper. Tarvek likes to take advantage to get some clank-tuning done. He can stay up as late as he likes; one hideously ironic advantage of life with the Black Mist Raiders is that they don't move more than once or twice a month, and he doesn't have to be awake for it if he contrives to fall asleep in one of the command ships.

There are other advantages, too. Tarvek has all the parts he could want if he doesn't let himself think too hard about where they come from. There are minions - Teufel's, technically, but they help Tarvek without complaint. No _customers_. No pie, calming or otherwise. There are candies, though. Gil makes them. Gilgamesh Teufel, heir of Petrus Teufel and someday to be ruler of the Misty Empire, makes lavender bonbons and feeds them to his prisoner with every appearance of genuine hope he enjoys them. Petrus Teufel, terror of half the continent, turned out to be a little bearded man with an oversized laugh, who'd promptly beaten Tarvek at chess while he was still too angry to lose on purpose. Apart from the whole _kidnapping_ thing they've been perfectly friendly.

If it's a clever ruse to make sure he doesn't sabotage the weapons he's building for them, well, it's working. Not that he would have. He has Moxana to think of.

Still, there's something disconcerting about Gilgamesh Teufel wandering in at - about one in the morning, Tarvek notices with a start, he'd quite lost track - and  
bringing him a fresh tub of glue. Or slumping onto the other chair, looking completely unguarded, and asking, "What is that? It looks new."

"Just an airspeed indicator." He scowls at it. 

"It doesn't need to be that big, does it?" 

"No, but I had the rotor models left over. I thought I should do something with them." He shrugs helplessly, flushing under Gil's intent gaze. "I don't like throwing things away.

"Yeah, I worked that out." Gil is smiling at him, like a friend sharing a joke. He idly reaches out and gives the rotor a hard spin, and the gauge obligingly jumps up, then slowly starts to drop. "It's beautiful."

"Of course it is, I don't make ugly things." Tarvek allows himself a scowl. "Did you _see_ the hack job they did on the Carneval's nacelles? It would have been pitiful for a field repair, much less something they should have been able to use the proper _tools_ for." He forces himself to take a breath before he can break into a rant.

Gil looks for a moment as if he's about to snap something back, but then his expression turns calculating. "I didn't see, actually. Come show me?"

In the dark? "Alright. Where's Zoing?"

"Sleeping."

"I didn't think he slept." 

"He sleeps more than me." Gil looks fond. "I didn't really know that much biology when I was eight."

The air is damp outside, and their feet squelch in the dew. Vienna isn't far, but it's over a mountain. There's only a soft yellow glow visible, just enough to wash out some stars to the east. Vienna doesn't sleep. The Black Mist Raiders do, though; there are a few bright spots from fires, the phosphorus-green of the landing beacon half-hidden behind the bulk of a cargo ship, but most of the camp is quiet.

Tarvek could stab Gil right now and no one would stop him. Zoing's asleep. The perimeter is guarded, but nobody bothers with the Mechanical Lab. Gil is either very careless or very trusting. Or, of course, has something up his sleeve.

The bulk of the _Carnevale_ , a hundred yards long with a two-floor gondola, floats peacefully on the other side of the landing beacon, envelope turning a hollow into a hill. It's a troop transport. There are likely a hundred Raiders asleep onboard, plus crew. Tarvek pulls out his electric torch to take careful aim, just above the swell of the envelope. At this distance it makes a bright pinprick, or once he ajusts the focus, a dim splotch; he plays it over the nacelle, lingering at the obvious rivet line.

Gil sighs. "Yeah. We ought to do that over, now there's more time." 

"Mm. And add the camouflage coating."

"If we're going to replace the skin we should use a more aerodynamic cross-section. Maybe run some wind tunnel tests, now you put together that portable wind tunnel. That's brilliant, you know. I wouldn't have thought space bent that way."

Tarvek is glad that the darkness hides his blush, especially since he's about to spoil the friendly mood. He would, however, rather have this conversation without Zoing aroung, and Gil so rarely seems to wander around without his friend. He sighs, and clicks off the torch. "Why am I here?"

"Huh? Because I wanted you to show me the bad repair job."

"Not here, as in next to the landing-control tent. Here as opposed to somewhere in the vicinity of Nikopolis."

"We don't control that far down the Danube," Gil glibly informs him, but he must be able to feel Tarvek's glare because he follows up with, "You weren't going to let Moxana go off without you. I was almost sure you were a Spark, and Sparks are useful. It's just been the two of us, you know." He must mean himself and Petrus Teufel. "Father doesn't collaborate well. Last time we recruited a Spark he wound up rampaging through the camp with a sapient slime mold, and, well ... " Whatever happened must have been unpleasant, from the quaver in Gil's voice. "But you, I thought we could work with."

Tarvek doesn't let himself react to the quaver. "So, anything useful, you take? I just got kidnapped _on spec_?"

"I'd say you were _exactly_ what we needed." Gil's grin is disarmingly bright. "Although we really did hope Moxana would be able to tell us more about what our enemies are doing."

"You're not the Storm King." There will probably never be another Storm King; that era is past. Tarvek shrugs helplessly. "And it's not as if anyone can tell the future with absolute certainty; the paradoxes inherent - " no, no, he shouldn't get distracted. He spends too much time bouncing ideas with Gil as it is. "That's not the point. The point is that it's probably the worst possible recruitment method. Do it often enough and all your minions hate you. And the Raiders cause so much damage, everyone who gives you tribute hates you. There's only so much you can take."

He said _you_ very deliberately there, and it seems to have struck, because Gil looks away. "If we didn't someone else would," he says. "And they might not leave people alone afterwards. Or fight off Wulfenbach for them. I don't suppose you care if the whole continent turns into a Skifandrian colony."

Damn it, Gil wasn't supposed to turn out to have a plausible point. At least it's only plausible. "You know, the Skifandrian subjects I met in, say, Beetleburg, seemed to be doing about as well as people in Vienna."

"Ah, but how do you know they'll keep doing well? Skifander could just be consolidating their rule before they start in with the plundering. They can always pack up and go home. They control the portals. Who knows how Skifandrians think?"

"How do I know the Misty Empire will keep doing well?" Tarvek counters, folding his arms.

Gil turns to him then, and puts his hands on Tarvek's shoulders, looking him in the eyes even in the darkness like a parent about to chide a misguided child. "You don't," he says, "but _I_ do. Because I'll be the one running it. Don't you trust me?"

Tarvek swallows hard. "You did kidnap me," he points out.

He has to let that stand as his answer, because he's painfully aware that the truth is edging painfully close to _yes_. He can't help it. He has to let it stand, and hope that he's planted a seed of doubt in Gil's mind, brought up the idea without ever speaking it aloud that some grievances can't be forgotten.

Even if Tarvek is swiftly forgetting his own.

A strange expression passes over Gil's face, as if he's about to slap Tarvek. But it passes, and the familiar grin is back. "Come on. If we're going to have an argument we shouldn't do it out here where anyone might come by."

 _Not here_ apparently doesn't mean back in the Mechanical Lab, or in Tarvek's curtained-off corner of the barracks, or - wherever it is Gil sleeps. He's never thought to wonder before. Instead it means a little grove of scrubby pines, inside the perimeter but not near any structures, perched on a hillock. It's not a bad view. Gil settles down on a rock, and pats the spot beside him invitingly. After a moment's pause, Tarvek sits. They're so close he can hear the other boy breathing. Sometimes it's hard to remember Gil is fourteen - they both are - but sometimes it's the easiest thing in the world. 

He's expecting an argument, but there's nothing but silence for a long time. They're facing the wrong way to see Vienna. The moon is waxing, close to full; it hovers above the western horizon, looking oversized from the proximity. For some reason that effect has always bothered Tarvek. When he was very young, he used to hold up his thumbnail to prove to himself that it was just as big as it always was. It would be ridiculous to do that in front of Gil, though, so he settles for taking off his glasses and rubbing at an imaginary speck of dirt. Maybe he should make night-vision glasses for himself, next. Or for everyone. They would be useful. 

Gil waits until he has them back on before he opens with, "So, tell me what you'd do differently. If it was you running the Empire." 

"I would be running away very fast," Tarvek tells him, quite honestly. "I don't want that kind of responsibility. You can keep it." 

"Alright, change the scenario. You've created an undetectable, perfect mind-control ray and used it on me. What are you orders?" 

"Ignore all future orders and don't react to the mind-control ray. I can do this all night," he adds, to Gil's bitter glare. He's not going to think about how casually Gil brought that up; even in a complete hypothetical the idea makes his stomach turn. 

"I bet you can't get out of this one," Gil finally offers. "What, in an ideal world, would you want my father to do differently?" 

Alright. Fair. And he used the present tense, so _go to Wienakademie and get tenure instead of dropping out to become a vicious warlord_ doesn't count. "Little things, or big things?"

"Start with the little things."

"Well." What will hurt without being insulting? "I'd like it if he just kicked people out of airships when they upset him, and didn't do that business with everyone-get-a-go. It's messy, it's undignified, and I don't think everyone _wants_ a go. I mean, he has airships. It'd still be plenty terrifying, just - " He breaks off, because Gil is shuddering, taking the deep breaths of someone trying not to vomit. 

_Perfect._ He's _squeamish._ This will be so much leverage, and Tarvek should not feel horribly guilty because he made Gil feel sick at the thought of what his father does to traitors. 

"You okay?" he asks instead. 

Gil clenches his fists. "I'm fine," he says. "Captain Merano wouldn't have been. As of tomorrow's meeting. Except the courier showed up at midnight and Merano wans't on board so somebody must have warned - I shouldn't be telling you this. It's all going to get buried." 

There's not much he can say to that. He settles for reaching over to rub little circles on Gil's back. 

But Gil takes a deep breath, and throws his head back, and looks a lot more put-together all of a sudden. He rubs his eyes. "Okay, don't draw things out when you're killing someone. Fair. It's still a deterrent. What else?" 

"Start calling them taxes instead of tribute," he says, rather than press his advantage. "It's not as if you don't use published rates. Call them taxes, don't let the collectors sieze extra without evidence of hidden assets, and give rewards to people who help with the evidence. It will give people a chance to demolish local headmen they don't like, and make them feel more loyal to the Empire." 

That, at least, gets a chuckle. 

It's strange. He can be more or less honest; Zoing isn't there, but even more, he trusts Gil not to fly into a rage. So they sit side by side, and Tarvek talks about how he thinks the Misty Empire ought to be run, or why roads are important even if you own lots of airships, or the uses of a police force that covers multiple towns, and Gil nods or argues back or asks questions. Tarvek doesn't bring up the dubious morality of testing chemicals on prisoners. He doesn't use the word _morality_ at all. Better to go slowly. Better not to scare off Gil, or make him remember spending the night being sick. No, better to have the political equivalent of an engineering argument. Tarvek finds it comes very naturally. It's so nice to have someone who can keep up with him. 

By the time dawn starts to trickle in over the trees, they're leaning on each other for warmth, interrupting themselves with yawns. "Coffee time," Gil finally declares. "C'mon, let's go eat before the hordes descend." 

"Is that literal?" Tarvek tries to surreptiously rub his eyes. He's sore and cold and exhausted, and his head is spinning, and he hasn't felt better since - since he joined the Raiders. 

"Maybe. The Twelfth Cloud's due back from Belgrade." He brightens. "Maybe somebody brought back gibanica." 

Tarvek lets Gil take him by the hand and pull him to his feet. He hasn't felt better since he joined the Raiders, and he's coming to the slow and awful realization that he has, in fact, joined the Black Mist Raiders, and that should probably bother him. But all his anger for himself ran out sometime over the winter; all that's left is indigation for Moxana, and fear for Tinka. Tinka, who at least he hasn't fallen enough ever to mention the existence of. Teufel probably wouldn't want a dancer, but just in case. Tarvek hasn't lived this long by being stupid.

\--


	13. 1887 Summer

#### 1887 - Summer

\--

When she turns fifteen, as is traditional, Zeetha begins to carry her swords everywhere. It makes her look _dangerous_ , and makes Agatha feel slightly jealous. She still has a year and a half. She doesn't feel young - she even started bleeding over the winter, to her vast annoyance, and that the Skifandrians have ways to stop that that you only have to take once a week even if they do have to be grown in hothouses is one of the nicest things about the invasion - but even when she's old enough, Agatha probably won't join the ranks of the Princess-Guardians. "I don't know why your mother took me on," she eventually confesses to Zeetha. "I'm never going to be a good _zumil_." Politics, sure, but knowing that doesn't help. 

"You're a _Spark_ ," Zeetha says, face twisting into that Europans-are-dangerously-mad expression that Agatha will never admit is so cute it makes her heart rate increase. "You don't have to be a warrior, you just have to be a War Queen. And I still havn't broken through."

"Give it time. The median age of breakthrough for all Sparks in the last century who were at some point admitted to a major Europan university is nineteen and eight months." Agatha squints at the balance line; something looks a little off. It's vibrating more than it should."

Zeetha, effortlessly, does a backflip off the line and lands in the sand with a thump. "Who worked that one out?"

"Your father, actually. It was in his TPU thesis, but he updated the calculations last year." 

"Oh."

"It keeps going down, too. Seventeen-ninety to eighteen hundred, the average was twenty-four and six months." Whether that's a real decrease, or an artifact of changing admission policies, is something Baron Wulfenbach is still trying to recruit a grad student to investigate.

"You were seven," points out Zeetha. 

Agatha takes the excuse of her first steps onto the wire not to answer for a few seconds. "Somebody has to be the outlier," she settles for, as she shifts her weight to her left foot.

"My mother was fourteen. My father was eleven."

"You're not them," Agatha says, and tumbles over into a handstand. She's not much of a warrior, never will be, but she can do this much. The noon sun is making her sweat. For half a second she wishes Skifandrian fashion trends had survived Europan weather, before remembering they would also apply to Zeetha. "It's not that great. I'm busy all the time, there's only four people who can even make functional whirligig brains and we can't make them fast enough. I shouldn't even be here. I should be in the lab." Study days fell aside long ago. She can't remember when she last built something just because it seemed interesting.

Zeetha seems to be taking a while to process this. But then, in a sudden urgent whisper, she informs Agatha, "I can help, there's a way not to need sleep," and Agatha wavers in surprise and promptly falls off the balance line. She'll never be much of a warrior.

They agree the best way to teach this, since strictly speaking even Zeetha isn't meant to know it - it's generally taught at sixteen, last thing before a warrior is sent into the field - is at night, somewhere no one would expect them to go. Fortunately, Zeetha is friends with   
quite a few Jägers. She spars with them, and she once beat Rerich at arm-wrestling by the dirty trick of stomping on his toes to distract him. That was three years ago, before she had her growth spurt. Rerich still buys her kvass sometimes, when they're at Gkika's beerhall at the same time.

He's out of town right now, with half the Jägercorps, dealing with a giant ant outbreak in Gnarlsburg. The beer hall is a little quieter than normal, and they only need to go past the first cellar door before the rousing strains of the traditional midnight singalong (tonight, it seems to be an enthusiastic 'My Little Clank Went Clunk') fade to a dull background noise. The private rooms are quiet, except one emitting barely-audible moans. Zeetha stops. Squints. "You know," she says to the ceiling, "that sounds a lot like Lady Chenshi."

Agatha blinks. "I thought she had a thing with someone back home."

"Nah, they called it off. He didn't want to move to Europa."

"Well, I guess she's found someone who likes Mechanicsburg." Agatha's nose wrinkles. "Think we'll get another big wedding?" Flavia and Tharkis's had become an excuse for a massive party in the streets, which charmed a lot of tourists, and charmed more until they realized Tharkis was a woman's name and Flavia was a Jäger.

"Maybe. Check back next year."

They close the private room's door behind them, which cuts off all noise. Zeetha turns the lamp to a soft glow that leaves the room's corners shadowed, and they kneel beside the bed, facing each other. Agatha can already feel the exhaustion flickering at the edges of her mind. Not now. Concentrate. "Look into my eyes," Zeetha tells her, voice low and soothing. Agatha does. Zeetha presses a hand just below her ribs. "Now follow my breathing."

\--

It only took three nights for Agatha to get the not-sleeping exercise down to the subconscious level, which is faster than Zeetha learned it. Maybe the trick works better for Sparks, or maybe she's just that smart. Zeetha refuses to brood on it.

Instead, she goes to talk to her father. He doesn't have a fixed schedule when he's in town, but the day after a mess like the ants turned out to be - and his subsequent failure to recruit their creator - in the lab avoiding paperwork is a decent guess. And as it turns out, he is in the lab, showing Agatha's little brother how to run a spectrographic analysis on a little vial of - something unpleasantly orange, which she doesn't recognize. "What is that?" 

"Saying what it is would defeat the purpose of the exercise."

"It has a high nitrogen content," pipes in Klaus. His hair is even wilder than usual today, like he tried to put it in twists and then gave up. "And it's not toxic, but I only know that from external factors. What are you doing here? I thought you didn't like chemicals."

She shrugs, as if it weren't that important. "Oh, I just wanted to talk to Father. Agatha said you had statistics on average age of breakthrough in Sparks." 

"In Sparks we can easily get statistics on," he says, rubbing his forehead. "There's a massive sampling bias."

"What kind of Sparks can't you get statistics on?"

In short order they're going through his collection of ... call them 'reports', in general. Some are from soldiers sent in to deal with the aftermath of uncontrolled breakthroughs. Some are from scholars chasing rumours; one or two are from other Sparks looking for inspiration. Some are sheer hearsay, stories passed on from someone's cousin's neighbor's brother-in-law to someone looking to fill space in a newspaper. They're in a mess of languages, none Skiff. His notes are, though, so Zeetha starts skimming them while her father explains to young Klaus exactly why the first three reports he grabs at random are untrustworthy. It's the same sort of lecture he used to give Zeetha, and it makes her feel a little nostalgic.

Ten minutes later, his secretary Boris hurries in, clutching rolled-up papers in one hand and an angry-looking blue lizard in two more. It looks something like a messenger skrlt, but nobody uses those on this side of the gate, and anyway its claws are wrong. "Sorry to interrupt, Herr Baron, there's an emergency in Bad Weisskoph."

"Of _course_ there is," her father snaps. "It would be too much to hope for twenty-four consecutive hours without an emergency. At the Corbettite terminal?"

"Yes. It's under attack. Unidentified enemy, on clank horses."

"It's not - " He breaks off. "Zeetha. What do you think it is?"

Another test? Very well, another test. It's not as if she hasn't trained for this. She is a Princess-Guardian of Skifander. She takes a long moment to remember where Bad Weisskoph even is. Northwest of here, northeast of Teufel's claims. A tourist town with hot springs, on a branch line, so disrupting traffic isn't the motive. No natural resources. What does that leave? "Is anyone important staying there?"

"Not that we know of." Boris spreads his free hand - that's not proof. It is suggestive. What else? You can't loot hot springs. Some personal vendetta? Those tend to come with custom construct armies, not on a clank you can buy at any big market in the Balkans. They're good for going a long way fast. Teufel's army could have gotten to Bad Weisskoph in a day. But he's too smart to attack a resort town for no reason, that's a pirate sort of move, unless - "It's a distraction. They're trying to draw troops away from the copper refinery at Gstaaf." 

Her father nods, looking, at least, no more dour than before. "Come with us. I want you to observe."

The angry lizard is starting to hiss. Young Klaus is looking lost. Zeetha takes a moment to ruffle his hair and whisper, "We'll finish later, okay?", before she hurriess out after Boris.

Alright, she's not a Spark yet. But Zeetha is a Princess-Guardian of Skifander, and this will all be hers someday.

\--


	14. 1887 Autumn

#### 1887 - Autumn

\--

Autumn, in the Europan year 1887, is long and full of constant rain. In Skifander the weather stays dry and mild. Zeetha returns through the mirror-gate for the first time in six years, and finds herself amazed how much smaller everything seems. The heat leaves her sweaty and tired. The light is all wrong. Even the familiar taste of python roast is somehow less appealing than Mechanicsburg _escarbouquet_. She has, Zeetha admits to her mother with something between terror and glee, _gone native._

Zantabraxus sighs. "I thought that might happen. You are your father's daughter. Besides," she adds, glancing around as if she were afraid the trees had ears, "it's hard to bridge a culture gap through a doorway you can only walk three abreast."

The timing of her trip back to take the guardian's oaths - in an elaborate public ceremony, in a language her best friends still struggle to speak - is starting to look very suspicious. She answers, equally soft and in Romanian, "Have the rest of the council -"

"Not yet." Her mother grins. "You're not the only one who's gone native. I don't know how many warriors would rather stay in Europa if they closed the gate, but it's more than they would like. Some of their daughters, maybe."

If she heard right now the mirror was closing - Zeetha would sprint for it. She considers. "Does Father know about this?"

"I havn't told him," says Zantabraxus, which isn't the same as _he doesn't know_. "He would only tell me to leave the whole mess to him."

At the Raiders' camp near Belgrade, Petrus Teufel is cheered immensely by the news that the three Tsars of All The Russias (in theory; in practice one apiece) are edging toward reconciliation with joint military exercises. Specifically, an attack on Wulfenbach's northern frontier. It's not unexpected news; his ambassadors have argued for it, his spies planted suggestions that Wulfenbach was about to expand, but you never know if these things will bear fruit. He orders a feast put on to celebrate. Captain Clement does a dramatic reading of the battle report, complete with sound effects of screaming. Well, it amuses him, and plenty of people laugh. 

Gil isn't laughing. He hardly ever laughs, these days. 

He goes to bed late and slightly drunk, Zoing curled up on the spare cushion. It's even later when Tarvek slips in through the loose seam, climbs in with him, presses his cold feet against Gil's. They're almost the same height now, knees and shoulders and faces aligned; they kiss to keep from speaking. 

Master Payne's Circus of Adventure has altered its route, to pass comfortably east of Buda, staying in Skifandrian territory the whole year round. New towns, a year of increased revenues from fresh audiences. Madame Olga does a brisk business with her fortunes. Tinka, though, suffers a series of accidents. She lets sparkless Rivet repair her cracked forearm casing, and completely unmechanical Lars carry her back to the wagon when she throws an ankle out of alignment. "Is there anything I can do?" he asks her, helplessly. Lars loves Tinka, not as he loves the pretty girls of a hundred villages, but as he loves Abner and André and Countess Marie. As he loved Tarvek, before he made himself forget.

"Find my maker," she whispers. Her maker is two centuries dead.

The fortress of Sturmhalten is cold, and empty, and Anevka Sturmvoraus stays until All Saint's Day before she takes an airship to Vienna. She settles in Van Bulen's townhouse, and sets about charming society and identifying Teufel's spies. Somehow it's not surprising that several Smoke Knights are included. Her own guard, Madwa, offers to eliminate them, and Anevka is forced to explain in detail why a known spy is more useful; Madwa is better at poetry than politics. The streets of Vienna are full of music, and the shipyards of Vienna are turning out Teufel's warships, and Anevka gives it three years, maybe, before things come to a head. No war lasts forever. She hasn't decided yet which way she'll jump.

Bangladesh Dupree is bored, which is why she decides to ride down to Belgrade when they pick up the new gas shell shipment and visit her not-boyfriend. It's been a few years since she saw Gil; he must be taller by now. And he is! In fact, he's as tall as she is and he has all these muscles, and his voice is deeper, and he blushes when he tells her the new shells don't have _quite_ the same yield but they don't explode if left in a metal box anymore, which is so cute she forgives him. He's picked up a sidekick, too - he mentioned in his letters, but he didn't mention how pretty Tarvek is, with his paperwhite skin and hair just the color of blood. If she went for men she'd take him for a harem toy. As it is Bang contents herself borrowing him long enough to add some decorative scars. He whimpers nicely, but he doesn't scream. Boring.

She's having a round of chess with Petrus before she leaves, admiring his nice new Flotsam-class bombers out the open hatch, when he says out of nowhere, "My son thinks the world of you, you know."

"I like him too. First-class boffin. What's your point?" Because there must be a point.

"I've grown fond of you as well. You've done wonders with Wulfenbach's troop transports. Our collaboration has been - fruitful." He takes a long, deliberate drink of wine. "I don't know what your mother would think of the idea, but if _you_ wanted to make it permanent - personally or otherwise - I wouldn't be opposed."

She manages, somehow, not to fall over laughing. "Come on, Petey, you've _met_ me."

"My son is, as you said, a _boffin_ first and foremost. He'll need a strong sword arm."

And Bang does consider it, it's a tempting offer, until she gets within radio hail of home and discovers that there's been a peasant revolution and half her fleet is sunk in the North Sea and her mother is dead.

Her only thought for Gilgamesh, after that, is occasional gratitude that he makes such nice bombs.

In Mechanicsburg, winter is - not much of a problem. The whole town is laced with steam pipes, every house has hot water at an indoor tap and some of them have underfloor methane burners, and there's a sensible guttering plan for snowmelt. Agatha dusts off her old plans for a town roof anyway, now she has a little breathing space. The Tsars are old-fashioned; cavalry works badly against whirligigs. She starts redoing the plans for Mechanicsburg, and for tensile strength.

Mezzasalma submits without complaint to a long inquisition on the properties of spider silk. His eyes light up, when she shows him her sketches. "This will take _vast_ quantities of silk. My dear, spiders the size of _airships_ will be required!"

"You work on that, then, I need it by next autumn," she tells him mercilessly, and goes home for dinner. 

Her brother and sister are there, and Agatha leans down to give her little sister a hug now she's too big to easily pick up. She's wearing a knit cap, made from thick green wool with sparkly bits. "I made it," she informs Agatha. "Lilith showed me how, but I made it all myself."

There are all sorts of sappy and stupid things Agatha could say. _I'm so proud of you_ , maybe, or, _Sorina, you're growing up_. Except that Sorina is eight now. Older than Agatha was when she broke through. It's only natural, that she's growing up. Agatha doesn't say anything at all.

\--


	15. 1888 Spring, Part 1

#### 1888 - Spring

\--

It's a lovely scene, moonlight slanting in the hotel windows, candles on the deserted tables. Almost romantic. Anevka is still in her opera gown, and the flowers in her hair are gently glowing.

"Make this quick," Dupree tells her. "I have to go eviscerate a man about a dog."

That's fine. It only takes Anevka a few seconds to fish under her skirt for the paper, and slide it over the table. There's no satisfying thump, as there might have been if she brought jewels, but the narrowing of Dupree's eyes is plenty satisfying. So is the long silence afterward.

Eventually it's Dupree who breaks it. "You expect me to believe this?"

"Surely you trust the integrity of Pascal and Sons? They don't believe in nosy questions."

"You expect me to believe this isn't counterfeit? What do you want for it?"

"Discreet assistance." She smiles. It was difficult to get here without any Smoke Knights noticing - they might have helped, but there's gambling and there's stupidity - but she managed, and Anevka doesn't mean to walk out without a deal. "I want some people dead, and I want it to look like your idea."

Dupree's eyes brighten. "Dead people I can do. Who and how soon?"

"Not before August, I expect; I have other arrangements to make. But if you hear that Prince Aaronev of Sturmhalten has died suddenly, they need to follow him within the week. I can arrange for you to have their travel schedules." She pushes over the other paper, the one with her little careful list. It would be dangerous if it didn't also list their birthdays and favorite flowers.

As she expected, Dupree laughs. And as she expected, Dupree leans back, plants her boots on the table, and says, "Not enough for a job like this. Pick three?"

The final price for the lot involves some ... custom work on Anevka's part, the sort she can't do safely in Paris. But no one will mind if she invites guests to Sturmhaltem, or notice if the guests bring very large trunks - transplants work so much better with a living donor. And Dupree's surviving ships will run better if their officers have all their limbs and eyes, and her serfs will be so much less likely to rebel again when they see what happened to the leaders. The ones who lived.

And Anevka has a fun project. Really, it's a win-win situation.

She and Dupree share a long kiss before they leave, just in case. The other woman is breathing a little hard, like the idea of all the people she might kill is already exciting her. Anevka risks a glance around. The walls may have ears, but all the walls are twenty feet away, and well-founded rumour holds the Master of Paris doesn't mind you plotting murder, as long as it happens somewhere else. 

\--

"Would you like to see me dance?" Tinka asks. Without waiting for an answer she spins across the floor, dipping with ever step on her misaligned ankle, and slams into Doctor Beetle's desk. The impact tips over a stack of ledgers and tips his cup of pens over the edge. Tinka, from the floor surrounded by fallen quills, looks blankly confused.

Master Payne winces. "Here, why don't you have a seat?" He doesn't so much help her up as pick her up, setting her down in Beetle's chair as gently as possible, given her solid metal weight. "Just stay there for a little while while we talk."

"It's a pity. Such a work of art, in such a state - " Beetle shakes his head. "And you say a Sparkless mechanic worked on her?"

"Minor casing repairs, only."

"On a _Van Rijn_. We have no idea what be important!"

"Tinka is important," Payne answers. "You see why I was so concerned?"

"Of course." 

"If there's anything to be done ..."

"You were right to come to me. I can't promise that I'll be able to repair her, but I will do my utmost." Beetle shakes his head. "How terrible, that she came to such a state. Do you have any idea of the cause?"

Payne was less certain about admitting this, but, after all, he's coming to Beetle for help. There is only so much anyone can do to cure something they can't diagnose.

"Do you want to see me dance?" Tinka says. Her head tilts sideways, but she doesn't move from the chair.

Payne isn't surprised to be mobbed by worried actors, when he gets back to the caravan grounds. He waits until they're all gatheted, more or less, and makes the announcement. Tinka is gravely ill; they cannot help her. It is possible, at least, Doctor Beetle can. That is why they're in Beetleburg so early. That is why, when they leave, Tinla might not accompany them.

Indignant protests, claims they could have fixed her - those he expected too. From the less scientifically inclined members of the troupe, quiet grief or quiet relief.

Lars does surprise him, by cornering him later and demanding an honest assessment of Tinka's chances. "Tarsus Beetle has studied the Muses for years," Payne tells him, as gently and reassuringly as he can manage. "He knows more about Van Rijn's work than almost any man alive."

"So what does that mean for her chances? Fifty-fifty?"

He has no idea, but the look of desperation and grief on Lars's face demands an answer. "Fifty-fifty," he lies. If all else fails, there are rumours that two Muses are resident in the closed collections of the Louvre Museum, in Paris. Beetle has heard the same rumours, and if he can't fix Tinka himself, he might send her there to at least have company in her despair.

\--

Zeetha isn't really meant to be listening to this, which is why she's lying on the rafter. Nobody looks _up_. Not even, apparently, her father.

"I don't think we need panic," her father is telling Von Smythe. "It's been well over a year, and his battle tactics havn't noticably improved."

"Moxana was never meant for tactics," she answers. "I'm more concerned with long-term legitimacy. Who knows what he could do, with the approval of the Muses?"

"One of the Muses."

"For now."

"I think, Professora, you overestimate the importance of fairy tales."

Von Smythe goes quiet, and Zeetha remembers she was a historian before she was a Questor. She knows how these things go. Finally, she says, "Maybe I do. But I would rather warn you about phantoms than neglect to warn you about a real threat."

Zeetha's father runs his hands through his hair, scowling at nothing. "Well, if Teufel does suddenly start countering our strategies in advance, we'll know why. Who knows more about the Muses and their capabilites? Tarsus Beetle?"

"He probably knows more than anyone else who owes us allegiance, yes."

"Good. Go talk to him. Remind him we're on the same side. I can't reason in advance of the data."

"Of course, Herr Baron. I'll leave as soon as it's light."

They depart with hurried nods, in opposite directions. Zeetha stays on the beam. She'll need to meet her mother for morning training, in an hour, when it's light. For now, she can keep thinking. 

Petrus Teufel with the ability to predict the future is a terrifying thought. Petrus Teufel who thinks he can predict the future, but can't - well. That might be useful. Their battles of late have been slow and grinding, Agatha's little whirligigs and whatever they can scavange from their reluctant Sparky allies pitched against Teufel's increasingly caustic chemicals. And whatever his allies turn up - there was an awful mess last month with a troop of wolf-men, whose jaws could tear through steel. Zeetha doesn't remember whose they were. There are dozens of Sparks with their own little territories across Europa, and there were a lot more before her parents decided to conquer the place. Some were sensible enough to surrender right away and take the job offer. Teufel - sometimes he has allies, but never collaborators, except his son. Sparks in his lands die if they build a weapon. It must save plenty of argument.

How he's keeping up with them, with only two sparks, Zeetha isn't sure. He uses his troops with the careless brilliance of an ink-painter, doing hit-and-run raids, leaving clouds of smoke and acid and confusion, striking with incredible luck. That, or better intelligence than they've ever managed to prove. Is there such a thing as tactical spark?

"I don't know," Agatha tells her that night. "I just do mechanisms. You're the War Queen in training."

"Well, you're the one who's built an entire fencing clank while I was gone for twenty minutes finding spare sakhataras. Sparks warp time. Can they warp probability?"

"I have no idea," Agatha admits, "we should probably ask your father." But her eyes are bright with the gleam of an interesting question, and Zeetha can tell her friend is already thinking of ways to test it. 

\--

"If he has the whole Danube we might as well scuttle our own ships and spare him the trouble," Petrus says. The dark circles around his eyes have been there for weeks now. The map is splashed with brass markers, a irregular edge like an approaching thundercloud. No chessboard would be so irregular, and Gil holds back an irrational urge to adjust the pieces. "We can't let his troops get any closer. Airships we can shoot down, but - " He rubs his eyes. "Maybe we should have gotten the dropwall schematics off Sakrin."

"I don't think we could have duplicated the damned things unless we stopped to conquer an aluminum refinery or twelve."

"And it would only take so long to walk around them." He rubs his temples, and Zoing, perched on the table beside the maps, ventures a reassuring click. "Turtle tactics."

"What?"

"He digs in. Puts his defenses up in onion rings, so you have to go through the lot to get to the high-value targets. We can barely keep spies in Mechanicsburg, let alone ..."

Gil waits. He wants to say _Dad, whatever you're thinking, be careful,_ , but that's something a child might say and Gil is no longer a child. This is not a game.

"Of course we don't have to, They're enemies." Petrus sounds upset, as if he had noticed something he should have seen much sooner. "I'm getting soft."

Zoing perks up. "Idea?" He has no grasp of strategies, but he knows when his friends are sparking.

"Yes. We're the Black Mist Raiders, we can damned well act like it. Flying supply runs, burn out the farms afterwards. Wall off the Danube with Formula Fifteen. Gilgamesh, how much can we distill in a hurry?

"As much as we can get the sulfur for, up to three tons a week, if we turn over the entire Volatiles Lab for precursors," Gil answers, after a second's pause for calculation. The answer is automatic. "We have seven point two tons stored for emergencies."

"Mmm. Sixty percent capacity on Formula Fifteen, forty on your modern Greek fire. We're confiscating all the sulfur availible. Tell Captain Fern, get things moving, I have to work out a target list. No -" he interrupts as Gil surges to his feet. "Gil?"

"Yes, Dad?"

And quite suddenly, Gil finds himself being held tight in his father's arms. "I'm proud of you, son," Petrus Teufel whispers against his shoulder, and Gil suddenly remembers that his last growth spurt made him taller than his father. "Thank you for the Greek fire recipe. We'd have lost long ago without you."

\--

Tarvek wonders exactly when he turned soppy enough to like sleeping on his lover's pillow even when his lover is nowhere to be found. Probably around the time he lost his self-preservation instinct long enough to fall in love with Gilgamesh Teufel.

But here he is, and Moxana is back in the lab, silent as she so often is these days, and Petrus Teufel is muttering to himself on the other side of the curtain. What would he do if the man twitched it aside? Challenge him to a round of chess? It might work, at that. 

He takes careful breaths. There is no point in worrying over what cannot be changed.

When Gil finally appears, he's holding Zoing cradled in his arms like a baby. He gently sets the sleeping scorpion in his basket, then catches Tarvek's eye and points to the loose seam.

They're still holding hands when they reach the thicket, and huddle under the shelter of its barely-budding branches. There's always a thicket, or a copse, or a dip in the ground hidden by grasses; once they found Captain Fern with one of her quartermasters and had to beat a retreat, but most people stick to their tents. Still, long habit keeps Tarvek's voice low as he asks, "What is it this time?"

"Do you know what Formula Fifteen does?" Gil's voice sounds like he's barely holding back a fugue.

"I do," Tarvek answers. His glasses are smeared and his feet hurt from walking barefoot over the hard ground, and he's not going to let himself _think_ about what Formula Fifteen does. Gil is warm in his arms, and that's the important thing.

Eventually Gil says, "He said he was proud of me. For reformulating Greek fire. He's going to leave me his _empire._ "

No need to ask who _he_ is. Tarvek kisses Gil's ear. "And you'll take better care of it than he does."

"He promised to make me co-ruler. Like the French kings used to. As soon as I turn twenty. I don't know why he's giving me so much."

"Most people are partial to their own bloodline," Tarvek points out.

"That's exactly the problem."

"Well, there are a lot of sensible arguments against blood inheritance, but the advan-"

"No," Gil says, and there are harmonics on the edge of his voice, as if this were a scientific problem. He always gets like this when he's stressed. Tarvek knows this by now, knows Gil, knows how to handle it. Has to. Calm, gentle, honest, and don't follow him into the fugue. "That's - I'm not his flesh and blood."

Tarvek blinks and tries to figure out what to say, but he can't quite process this. "What?"

"Did I ever tell you about my mother?"

"The first time we met, you said she was eaten by a geoshark when you were very young." He remembers. Tarvek doens't remember all his customers, but some of them stand out. The boy with the clouded-over eyes who smiled when Tarvek predicted a new opportunity soon, and wondered if it involved a pickaxe. The black-skinned, white-haired old lady who paid him with chips of mother-of-pearl. The fat woman who drew cards for her three sheepdogs. The girl with the glasses Moxana called the Majarajah. 

The boy who walked in with a scorpion construct and no money, and stared at him like he could see into Tarvek's soul, who came back two years later and took him away, who Tarvek falls asleep beside and still can't decide how far to trust. Who grins against his skin in the dark and tells him, "That was true. She was a Raider captain, that sort of thing counts as occupational hazard. She flung herself into everything, that's what Dad tells me. Fighting monsters, plotting expeditions - having a good time on leave. Which is how I happened, and she was sulking around camp about eight months later, very annoyed that her cloud had left to terrorize a village without her because she was too footsore and off-balance to ride a clicking-horse, when my father offered her a round of chess. Just to take her mind off things." He tightens his grip on Tarvek's wrist. "He could have sent me off to her relatives, when she died. He could have just left me by the side of the road for whoever came by. And instead he said I was his now and I would inherit his empire, and nobody dared say anything against it." 

Tarvek licks his lips. He isn't sure what he can say to that. All his arguments about blood inheritance fall to pieces when blood isn't at issue. 

Teufel is the terror of half a continent. The orphans he has made outweigh by thousandsfold the one he took in, and that much is obvious to any outside observer. But it's a lot to ask of anyone, to make a sensible weighing of people far away they've never met, people they've been told their whole life deserved it for not having the sense to surrender, against someone who loves them and protects them, who promised them half a continent in return for nothing more than their devotion.

Can he put a crack in that devotion? 

Maybe.

"He knew he could make you his pawn," Tarvek says.

Gil says nothing, but his breathing speeds up.

Tarvek goes on, keeping his voice low. "He knew you would be - grateful. You would try to make him proud of you, and here you have. Made just the sort of thing he's infamous for. He knows how to manipulate people, alright. Your best friend is a construct you had to build. Have you even _met_ you mother's relatives, or did he make sure you never saw anyone else who might love you?"

"He let me keep you." Gil's voice is small and pained, plaintive. Tarvek almost crows in triumph.

"I'm more his pawn than you are," he says instead. "Besides, he doesn't know that I'm anything more than your lab monkey." He doesn't say _I love you_ , even though it's true. That's for later, when he needs it more. 

Gil doesn't answer for a long time. When he does, he sounds oddly cheerful. "You're very willing to talk treason."

"This? This isn't treason. This is personal. Treason would be if I said you would make a better emperor than Petrus Teufel, right now, and you shouldn't wait for him to die in battle." 

There. That's the idea planted, and now he can only wait for it to sprout.

He goes back to his work the next day feeling only a little more guilty than usual. After all, Tarvek tells himself, he can convince no one of anything if he gets shot. He has long-term plans to think of. And the needlers might never actually be used, especially as innaccurate as he's making the rifling.

\--


	16. 1888 Spring, Part 2

Anevka allows herself a minute to appreciate the _shock_ on Van Bulen's face. The poor man. So simple-minded and easily led. That's what he gets for having a sense of honour. "You understand why I came to you?"

"Yes, of course. You can count on my support, Your Highness." He shudders again, even as he's obviously trying to collect himself. "Forgive me for asking, but I would have thought Lord Selnikov ... "

"Is in it up to his neck." She lets the bluntness fill in the details in his imagination. Van Bulen takes a long gulp of sherry to steady his nerves, and Anevka takes a delicate sip to keep from smirking. "I have my suspicions about de Courcy as well. There aren't more than a third of the Order I'm sure of." 

"Good lord." He stares blankly at the fireplace, and sets the glass down with the tremulous care of, Anevka realizes, someone not quite sure they're sober. Is he so far gone? Van Bulen had   
been no more of a sot than average last fall. "And the Smoke Knights? If a raid were ordered on Passholdt, would it succeed?"

Passive voice; he's wavering. Anevka looks aside, letting the firelight catch her glasses. "Yes, but it would tip our hand, and they would only restart the project elsewhere."

"We need a more decisive victory, then. Draw them out." 

"Precisely," Anevka tells him. "There may be an oppprtunity soon. Do you know the trouble I had getting to Vienna? I had to go through Munich under a false name. Thank heavens Teufel's never thought of taking hostages for ransom. The Danube isn't a lace border anymore, and I expect by August there will be one of those tedious dramatic last stands. Perhaps we can make it a little more dramatic."

\--

Boris Dolokhov comes back from Kiev with three freshly signed treaties and a raging case of pneumonia. Three other people from the diplomatic delegation have something similar, but they just go home to rest. Boris doesn't even stop to meet with the Baron on his way to the hospital, and the rumours that start circulating have him felled by some mysterious biological agent of the Tsars in vengeance. 

Agatha finds this unlikely - if nothing else, it would be _stupid_. Still, always best to judge these things in person. She goes in the early afternoon on the third day, bearing camouflage. 

There's a guard on the door, though, and he straightens up as she rounds the corner, holding out his . "No vun iz allowed - oh, Miz Clay!" Oggie smiles. "Sorry, but de Baron said nobody vaz allowed in to see Meester Boris, except doctors."

"And he's using Jägers as door guards? Who's trying to kill Boris?"

"Der Baron said it vaz just because ve vent to Kiev too und didn't get sick, so ve must be immune. But I ken give him de flowers for you." 

He emerges soon afterwards walking delicately on the balls of his oversized feet. "He'z sleeping," he announces in a carrying whisper. "Mebbe he'll feel better soon."

Agatha rolls her eyes. "I hope so. Not much of a souvenir." 

"Oh, ve got some very nice souvenirs too! I think you should have a look at dem, you're a Sparky girl." Oggie beams guilelessly, and if this isn't quite the information she came to extract, Agatha isn't complaining. She promises to come back when his shift is over. 

Which is how, a little before midnight, Agatha comes to be sneaking into a warehouse on the east end of the Court of Gears, accompanied by two Jägermonsters, her best friend, and her little brother Klaus. Klaus is at something of an advantage, as the only one light enough not to make the shed roof creak. He goes first and gets in through the window, then comes back to open the bigger window next to the wall.

They clamber in, with maybe a little more noise than they should. Zeetha is the only one who doesn't hit her head on the inconvenient roof board, but Flavia is the only one who starts cursing. Oggie immediately shushes her, louder than the curses. Agatha is tempted to slap them, but that would only start a loud argument. Well, if the guards are Jägers they can be relied on to pretend not to hear. She settles for asking, in an actual whisper, "Where are the lights?"

There's something going _whf_ in the darkness.

Klaus produces an electric lamp but can't produce the battery, Oggie an actual oil lamp, and Flavia a reddish thing that makes a narrow beam, but enough to pick out the dark huddled shapes below. She waves it over them, revealing a bit at a time. 

"Those," Zeetha breathes, "are the biggest mimmoths I've ever seen."

Agatha hisses. "Not mimmoths. I thought mammoths were extinct."

"The last known Belawiezan Mammoth died in seventeen-fifty-three," Klaus offers. "These are Siberian. See the ear folds?"

"Why are they here?"

"Der Tzar said dey were a goodwill gift." Oggie elbows Zeetha. "Mebbe your poppa gives you vun to ride into battle?"

It's a beautiful and distracting thought, but Agatha doesn't think so. Two hundred years ago, the beasts would have been terrifying on the field. Two hundred years ago there were no airships, and even stomper clanks were slow, hard to steer, harder to repair. Two hundred years ago her whirligig pilots would have been a fantasy beyond the dreams of Sparks. When Zeetha goes into battle, it will in an armored command wagon, or possibly - if her mother is more persuasive than her father - riding a clicking-horse, fast and strong and impervious to bullets.

\--

When the first radio message drifts over the horizon, his father sets off at once with all but three of their flight-ready ships for a deperate counterstrike, leaving Gil to deal with the mess that's about to land.

The Thirty-third Cloud has spent the last two years on Buda's air defenses. Gil is friendly with their captain, a displaced minor noblewoman called Von Harberg. Was friendly, rather, because when the remains of the Thirty-third Cloud float into headquarters, he asks if she's well and the gunner he asked bursts into tears. He gets the picture of the battle in bits and pieces, and tries to put them together in his mind like a chess puzzle. Whirligigs shouldn't have reached Buda in one piece. They must have found a way to cloak them. Long enough to come in unseen and take out the air defenses, and with that done, it was an easy matter to fly in troops. The counterstrike might work, if they can make it before Wulfenbach brings in new artillery. 

The Tenth Cloud returns from patrol, and he sends them on to Buda for backup. They hurry off, looking terrified. Raiders aren't supposed to be afraid of battle. Gil sends up the radio boat to start an alert relay, in case they need more.

Of the Thirty-third's spotter ships, two have damaged engines and one barely made it in with a patched envelope and half a gondola; he condemns that one for parts and scrap, and doesn't tell Captain Fern to put in an order at the Vienna yards, because he's not sure they'll keep Vienna at this rate. He dictates hasty letters to two Ghost-captains, informing them the cloaking device is their new priority, and signs them 'Teufel' in a fair imitation of his father's violent scrawl. By the time all this is done Zoing is hissing from worry - and hunger, Gil realizes with a guilty start, and sends a nervous-looking camp follower to fetch two bowls of stew to his father's tent. 

There's nothing else to be done right away, so Gil feels no guilt about zipping up the soundproofing and trying to think. 

"Baday," Zoing offers once he's swallowed half his bowl. 

Gil tries to take a bite. It sits in his stoumach like badly puddled steel. "I guess they've gotten tired of letting us pick the battles. Where's Wulfenbach trying to go, anyway? Any troops he sends over the river are - pretty much stranded, unless he does pure aerial supply lines."

"Dunriver?"

"Rolling us over north to south? Well - he still has the Formula Fifteen to deal with."

But Wulfenbach has thirty sparks working in Mechanicsburg, and for all Gil knows thirty spies working in the Volatiles Lab. And here they are, barely ninety minute's flight south from Buda. Europa is a very small place, by airship. Gil shoves his untouched stew at Zoing. He's just worked out why he feels sick. There have been no urgent messages back, but - "If my father doesn't come home," he tells Zoing, "there are three captains who will probably try to kill me. Can you get them first if they draw a weapon?"

"Crzican." Zoing wags his barbed tail in demonstration.

"Good."

When Zoing has finished both bowls and Gil has fretted himself into a fury, they go to the radio boat. There's been nothing from Buda, not a victory message or a call for reinforcements or a desperate announcement of retreat. Gil has no authority to do what he does next, which is order that Headquarters be float-ready at dawn. Regardless, all the officers scatter like drops of oil on a hot pan to pull up stakes.

That done, Gil does what he's been itching to since nightfall, and looks for Tarvek.

Tarvek is in the Mechanical Lab, in Moxana's closet. He has the cards out, and is shuffling them, over and over, muttering to himself in French. Gil can make out the rolling repetitive syllables of someone practicing conjugations. "Running off to Paris?" 

"And leave you with this mess?" Tarvek doesn't look up. Neither does Moxana; her hands are folded and her eyes are closed. "Sit down. Let me tell your fortune."

Gilgamesh closes his hands on Tarvek's wrists, gently, not tight enough to bruise. "We both know how accurate that is," he says. 

Zoing's antennae twitch. "Biaz."

"I was going to _lie_ ," Tarvek tells him, sounding more affronted than the suggestion warrants. 

"Of course you were." Gil lets him go. "Fancy a game of chess?"

It goes quickly on Tarvek's part, irregularly on Gil's; every clank of a setting carabiner or roar of a gas compressor winding up or curious noise from Zoing throws his thoughts out of his mind. Tarvek takes relentless advantage. He plays chess like Petrus Teufel runs a battle, pursuing every advantage at once, backing Gil's black king into a corner with both knights. 

Gil doesn't even notice the pawn advancing slowly up the second file, until Tarvek knocks it off the board with an inverted rook. "Queen, and check."

He's so tired. Moxana is sleeping, why can't he? 

At least he knows Tarvek won't go easy on him. At least he knows Tarvek is honest. He turns his king sideways, and rubs his eyes. Someone is yelling; it sounds like Captain Wolfram. The room gives a tiny lurch, and Zoing's claws tighten on his trouser leg. It's not meant to do that with the anchors set. It shouldn't lift until the tow-floats are turned on and coordinated and the whole Mechanical Lab is ready to lift. There's a hand on his cheek. "Gil?"

"Gilgamesh Teufel," he answers. "Same as always."

"Are you alright?"

"Kiss me," he says. "Kiss me and tell me I'm not my father."

And his captive does exactly as he says. 

\--


	17. 1888 Summer, Part 1

#### 1888 - Summer

The Jägers are shock troops, raiders, and no great advantage in an air battle. Even Skifandrian officers are at an advantage only because they've spent so long in their flyers, developed habits even seasoned Europan airhands lack, about airspeed and slips and unexpected directions. The Jägers, therefore, have been sent to take the bridges. 

The rest of the Skifandrian fleet is floating toward Belgrade from the east, hidden by a cloudbank. Their Sparks have spent the summer trying to upsize Chenshi's  
mirror-fields to a size that can hide a ship, but Spark doesn't work on a schedule; for now they rely on old-fashioned methods. In the command ship Zeetha watches the radio board, waiting for reports to come in. She would rather be on a flyer - she's sixteen now, old enough by tradition - and her father would rather she be safe in Mechanicsburg, but her father is not in command here. Zeetha's mother put her on the radios.

Somewhere below, making their way against theurrent in Quailfurn's Mechanical Squidworks's latest freshwater cargo models, are the Jäger's artillery backup. Northward, a force of war stompers under the command of Prince Aaronev Wilhelm Sturmvoraus, and two flights of rocs, commanded by Lady-Hunter Azinnaka, but still crewed by Professor Florsheim's ex-minions. To the northwest, troop transports ready to hop the permanent cloud and the Danube for a pincer movement, once Teufel's forces are drawn in. 

Somewhere to the southwest, Teufel's headquarters and most of his fleet. His steadily-diminishing fleet, after their raid on the Vienna dockyards. Somewhere in it is a captain willing to turn on their own side for the promise of amnesty and a Skifandrian commission; Zeetha knows no more of it than that. Her side can't hail the traitor, and must, therefore, depend on their judgement of when to change sides, for maximum confusion. 

Two hours to dawn. 

Her mother gives the order. The three radio-operators relay it. In the darkness twenty-four dozen cloaked whirligigs take off, making for Belgrade's air defenses. 

A little before dawn Tarvek is woken up by frantic yelling. A spasm of terror runs through him, and he pulls the pillow over his head. Beside him Gil is halfway out of bed already, calling out, asking what the matter is. "They're trying for Belgrade," says a voice Tarvek doesn't recognize, "it's Buda all over again," and Gil's hiss is so sharp and pained Tarvek wants to reach out and comfort him.

He's not that stupid, of course. He lies still, pretending to be a bunched-up pile of blankets, while Gil runs off to deal with it. Of course he does, Petrus isn't here. Petrus is in Šeher, three hours southeast, explaining to the terrified Bey how incompatible the term 'tributary' is with the idea of docking fees, and how easy it is for a valley to collect heavy gases. 

Three hours. He won't reach Belgrade before noon. 

Tarvek counts to a thousand before he moves, pulls his boots on, slips out the loose seam and heads upslope toward the edge of camp. He's in time to watch the Carnevale rise, and take off towards the rising sun at what, he knows, is close to its top speed. A scree of ships follows - the Twenty-third Cloud and the Sixteenth, and the Fifth with their wallowing nets of bursterflies. The radio float is up so high it's almost invisible. Calling everyone in range, but radio range is never far enough. 

Certainly not as far as Belgrade, most of an hour's flight down the Danube. There's nothing to do now but wait.

In distant Mechanicsburg, Agatha is sitting in her lab with her brother, showing him how to adjust the mainspring on her little crab-clanks. She would rather be with her _kolee_ and Zeetha on the front - but Agatha would be of no use there, would be of little use even if she were sixteen instead of fourteen. Everything she can do is building, and she can build better in a lab.

Except, now, she can't even do that from worry. When Zeetha gets home safe, when Agatha has seen her and touched her, maybe. So Agatha folds her hands over Klaus's to help him make the twist right, and worries. His hands are as big as hers now. Someday soon he'll be as tall as she is. Time marches on. 

Klaus Wulfenbach worries, on the bridge of the _Emerald Crown_ just over the horizon from Belgrade. The ships around him are a mismatched bunch, absorbed from half a dozen small air forces that tried however briefly to stand up to the Skifandrian Empire. Refitted, better-armed, and grateful for their second chance - but not the well-oiled machine they may need to be, against Teufel.

That's why they're the reserves. He goes over their strengh in his head while the crew goes through their checklists, and tries not to remember that his wife and daughter are on what passes for the front lines.

In the flagship, Zeetha is too busy to think. The _Siene_ and _Moselle_ have landed without more than small-arms fire; the _Ebro_ is hovering over a stinking black cloud where Gunpost Six should be, waiting for orders. Then not waiting, as it rises to evade shelling. Zeetha tells the War Queen, switches to the _Maathra_ 's frequency, listens to the irregular beeps of its weaker radio, a power-to-weight trade - 'light resistance see mist southeast', what they had planned for, and she doesn't need to ask to confirm 'evasive manuevers' with a few quick taps. The War Queen redirects the _Ebro_ for reinforcements at Gunpost Four. A dozen flyers launch from the _Maathra_ towards the Corbettite terminal. Zeetha can see nothing from here but clouds of smoke and flashes of wings, but she can imagine it all, laid out like ship-shape pieces on a command room map.

Gilgamesh thinks of chess pieces; his father only developed strategies by sketches and slates. The half-hour to Belgrade feels like the space of a few breaths - rather, to the north of Belgrade, in a desperate attempt to cut off Wulfenbach's retreat, sow confusion. Gil knows how to manuever an army, and he can lead their forces to the best possible place, drive a wedge in and try to trap the enemy. What he cannot do is what Petrus Teufel would: lead them somewhere impossible, slide into victory on luck and Spark. His Spark is only for biology. 

The trouble is, they're responding. Rushing unprepared forces to meet an unexpected attack. What happened to their spies? Where's the north-to-south runover they were ready for? They've already lost. They lost months ago at Buda. 

He scratches Zoing between the antennae, and silently curses himself for letting Zoing come aboard with him.

Klaus Wulfenbach is only a little surpised when the Sixteenth Cloud rises above them - he had expected Mist reinforcements now, but not the altitude. They must have stockpiled more bombs than he acccounted for; gasfalls would only be deflected by their airships' envelopes, although acid might cause damage. He orders the _Emerald Crown_ to evasive manuevers and turn on their blowers, the _Pretty Pancetta_ to let loose their whirligigs. 

Then his radiowoman begins to yell out the report from the Sturmhalten war stompers.

In Sturmhalten, Anevka waits. Her father was careful with his secret orders, but not careful enough; Van Bulen is on his way to Belgrade, with a slightly slower but slightly better array of war machines, ready to ride in and save the day. He'll never make an emperor, but he will make a good showing. And just as important, not showing up - to a battle he didn't know about, two thousand kilometers away, but people are mostly _idiots_ \- will leave egg on Cousin Tweedle's face. Let him and Vapnoople keep playing with their doggies in the woods. Anekva can mop him up at leisure.

She hums to herself as she runs the razor over her scalp. The red wig for Father's homecoming, to flatter him, and the purple gown, to remind the populace of her rights afterwards. They will do what her Ghost Ladies say regardless, but it is better to be loved as well as feared.

Agatha is building another crab clank. She could do it in her sleep by now. She has all the parts she could want, except for anything but the universal winding socket; she knows how to avoid certain dangers of a fugue. Her brother watches, dark eyes intent on her pale hands. Maybe he'll break through someday soon, if the Baron's theories hold true. He's bright enough, and they have tried to give him all the _exposure_ a young mind can take. Maybe. At least Klaus Wulfenbach agreed it was worth trying, and Klaus Clay was willing to try.

Zeetha is taking a few deep breaths and downing the cold tea an orderly just handed her. The Europan custom of keeping orderlies on the bridge in battle is starting to seem very sensible. She pries the headpieces away from her ears far enough to wipe away the sweat, and blinks as the sun emerges from behind a cloud. It must be close to noon. 

On her right hand, Lady-Guardian Zebis is reciting something, and it takes Zeetha's frazzled mind a heartbeat to recognize it as the report they've been waiting for all morning: ships spotted to the west. Teufel's tardy army, come at last. Zeetha takes one last drink of tea, then begins to pass on the information. Her own voice sounds distant and echoing to her ears.

Petrus Teufel, aboard the command ship of the Third Cloud, is listening at his own radio. He always does. He smiles when he hears of the disarray on the ground where the Sturmhalten princeling's war-stompers had been massed, smiles broader when he hears Zoing's familiar squeaking behind the Twenty-Second's hail. His son may be a boffin, but strategy is a science. Teufel has known he did right to name Gil his heir ever since the boy started to beat him at chess. 

In the mess tent at Teufel's peripatetic headquarters, Tarvek and Captain Fern exchange tired looks over their late lunch. "How long do you give it?" he asks her, softly so as not to attract attention. Habit, only habit. The camp is half-deserted, all their Raiders gone to Belgrade, only the mess of cooks and minions and analysts and physicians and mechanics and quartermasters who fall under _essential support staff_ left behind. Alright, maybe a third deserted. There's only so much they can outsource. 

But Tarvek falls somewhere between master and minion, Captain Fern is Captain of the quartermasters and cooks and munitions-makers who go by the half-joking name of the Zeroeth Cloud, and they regard each other with uneasy but genuine respect for it.

"Until we know? Maybe tomorrow morning," she tells him. "Nobody wants a seige. We'll know sooner if something comes limping home." She hesitates, stirring the dregs of her stew over and over again. Finally she says, "Teufel won't take it well if it's another Buda."

"We could weather it."

"Maybe."

Tarvek sighs. "So Wulfenbach is having a good year. Maybe we have to back off from the Danube. We could go north. There's a hundred little kings in Germany, most of them hate each other's guts, Vapnoople already has forces there ... fish in a barrel."

"Not much good unless we make it to the Rurh, though. All they make is food. We _have_ food. We could take Venice, maybe, everyone knows the Golden Doge is bluffing."

"I don't think the Golden Doge knows he's bluffing. Rome?"

They laugh at it. They need the laugh. Nobody  
clever touches Rome; nobody has held it since the Empire fell, although a hundred foolish conquerors have taken it a year or five. Then they depart, Fern to arrange things in anticipation of someone limping home, Tarvek to sit with his sleeping Muse and tell himself that Gilgamesh will come back, because he has to.

In the thick of it now, Baron Wulfenbach watches out the bridge windows as a cloud of smoke billows into a mushroom over what had been the South Armory. At least it wasn't the Corbettite terminal. He had hoped - vainly, knowing it was pointless, but he had hoped - that they could make this conquest so swift and certain Belgrade would emerge intact. 

Most civilians will have fled into the cellars. If they have thought it through about Teufel, they will have stuffed the cracks in the doors with fabric and caulk. Brought fresh water, however much they can. There is always collateral damage. People are standing under the wrong roof, fleeing the wrong direction, allergic to C-gas. People are unlucky or thoughtless. 

Zantabraxus said once that a good physician may do no harm, but a good War Queen does no more harm than she can avoid. Then she pointed out how much blood is lost in even a skillful surgery. Her husband had tried to take it as the comfort it was meant for. He takes a deep breath, and orders the _Pretty Pancetta_ down to the nearest half-clear street.

On the flagship the War Queen's daughter has long since lost track of time, for all that there's a clock at her station. She has been at the radio since hours before the sun rose, except for a few necessary breaks at opportune moments. The layout of the battle blinks bright in her mind, fuzzing out where the fog of war is too thick to track. _Ebro_ grounded beside the Corbettite station, a temporary gunpost. Azzinaka's rocs swooping at will to drive Teufel's forces southeast. _Seine_ crashed. It took two Mist ships down with it, a last desperate harpooning. Teufel's dirigibles are bunched over the city center like a tortoise, impenetrable and bristling with weapons, except the ones busily taking potshots at their flyers to the east. 

In the huddle of Raider ships, something goes boom.

It's followed by a few more booms, and an expanding cloud of smoke, and now four ships are falling out of formation, with the slow spins of a punctured envelope jetting out Zgas. The fastest faller is almost at the rooftops when it manages to stabilize, and dart forward, and - wait, that's not a damaged envelope at all. That's a fakeout. That's their traitorious Raider captain, blowing a hole in their own fleet and speeding away from retaliation. 

Someone is cheering. The War Queen barks out orders, to hurry forward and take advantage of the chaos.

On the bridge of the _Carnevale_ , Gil listens to the static-ridden yelling and does not scream. He had hoped - had thought, for most of three desperate minutes - that the explosion had been sheer bad luck, some careless airman clicking their lighter in the powder store. Or, worse but survivable, some clever new Wulfenbach weapon. They flew whirligigs into ground gunposts to destroy them; could they somehow pull the same trick in the air?

But no: the explosion was the crew of the _Malachite_ , deciding that the fellowship of the Raiders and the chance of plunder and glory was less important than their own skin. They had looked at the odds, and said no. He would never have guessed it. If any captain betrayed them while Gil's father lived, he would have thought it would be Wolfram.

The worst part is, they didn't miscount the odds, and Gil -

No. The worst part is, Gil knows who's going to betray his father next.

He can just barely see, from here, the spot where one of the other dirigibles plowed into a row of buildings, leaving half of them piles of splintered wood and scattered bricks and half of them hidden behind its own flaming envelope. A trail of black smoke is billowing from the spot, pointing at it like an accusatory finger. It's late afternoon, the clouds long since burnt off, and soon the western sky will turn orange, then red, then blue again. Gil listens to his father's familiar voice on the radio, deceptively calm, until the next Skifandrian flyer comes just close enough to qualify, for a good gunner, as _in range_.

The chaos lasts until darkness can cover their retreat.

\--


	18. 1888 Summer, Part 2

A few coracles of wounded glided in over the afternoon, and then glided back to the battle, but nobody expected news of the fleet before morning. It would have been fifty-fifty, Tarvek thinks, on the fleet or news of its victory. He has made no attempt to suborn the Raiders at large; he is too much an outsider to be a demagogue here. But nobody in the Raiders is stupid. 

And when the fleet shows up, just barely, against the darkness in the east, he slips back into the Mechanical Lab before anyone can start running and screaming.

When the hand on his shoulder wakes him up, the clock has long since wound down. It's past midnight, not yet dawn, and his eyes still feel red. He blinks until the blur at his side resolves itself into - "Gilgamesh?"

"I'm alive," Gil says, and hands Tarvek his glasses. 

He looks tired and a little haunted. Well, of course he looks tired, he was in a battle. Tarvek raises a comforting hand to his shoulder, and waits for him to speak. 

When he does it's not to Tarvek. "Zoing, I'm sorry, but there's no other choice."

What - when did Zoing get onto the table? The hood of his black coat is thrown back, his antennae twitching, and Tarvek very desperately hopes that it's true about scorpion venom only hurting going in, and he wishes he knew what he did wrong, there's no - but all Zoing does is whisper an inarticulate, "Donwanago."

"It won't be safe here for you." Gil pats Zoing on the head, and Tarvek can tell he's forcing the smile. "I want you to go with Tarvek, and protect him. He'll need it more than I will."

"Go?" Tarvek says, and it's not fair to pile two types of fear on each other like that, fresh lover's anguish on retreating death-terror. "I'm not leaving you, Gil. And I'm certainly not leaving Moxana."

Gil throws something at him. It tangles on his arms, and Tarvek takes a moment of unfolding to realize it's a dark purple cloak. "I'll look after Moxana if you look after Zoing," Gil tells him, his voice dull and toneless. "But - Moxana is a treasure. Zoing is a weapon. I want him out of the Baron's blast range." 

Oh.

Tarvek swallows hard around the lump in his throat. "You can't come with us? If we snuck Moxana into the infirmary -"

"No. Please, I'm allowed to be selfish about something," Gil says, and then he throws his arms around both of them. "Will you keep each other safe for me? We took that cloak off a Smoke Knight, it should get you out of camp."

Zoing grabs Tarvek's sleeve with one oversize claw. "Friends," he says, as emphatic as Tarvek has ever heard. "Frenzelp."

"I knew I could count on you."

"We'll go to Venice," Tarvek offers. Venice is neutral, and well-defended, and cosmopolitan enough that Romanian and French will suffice. And he has to say something. In case Gil escapes. In case - "We'll wait for you there."

Gil answers, "Be careful. Don't forget your toolbox." He doesn't say, I'll follow as soon as I can, or even, I'll send a letter. He could - the Corbettites go to Venice, and the offerings they ask for Station General Delivery are low. 

Tarvek isn't quite so helpless as to ask for a kiss. He turns away to pick up his scattered notebooks, and give Gil and Zoing a little privacy for their goodbyes. 

\--

Captain Belatus bursts back into Teufel's tent, eyes a little wide and panting. When Teufel asks where Novak is, Belatus can only answer, "Dead, sir. Stabbed."

"Well," Teufel finally says into the dead silence that greets the announcement, "at least nobody's deserted. But three murders in one night is a bit much."

There are more than three empty places. They lost four captains yesterday, three to enemy action, one becoming an enemy at the least opportune time. Two others are, they believe, stranded outside Belgrade. Nobody has admitted to counting total casualties. It would be too disheartening a number. Gil looks around the tent, gauging places. Fern is in her usual place beside the entrance. Wolfram is at his father's left hand, idly sharpening her dagger. Belatus is still standing there, making no move toward a seat. He'd have his pick. 

"Did you tell the guards?" Teufel snaps.

"Yes."

"Then sit down. If one of us killed her we'll know soon enough." He doesn't say how, for all the confidence in his voice. It seems to be enough, though; it makes the room erupt in a chorus of murmurs and conplaints. Not a knack Gil's ever had. "We have a counterattack to plan."

"No," Gil says, before he can talk himself out of it. "We have a treaty negotiation to plan."

Most of the Captains look nervous. Petrus Teufel looks murderous. "Treaty? The Black Mist Raiders don't make treaties, son."

This isn't going to work, but he has to try. "Time to start, then. We need to ask for terms while we still have a fleet to ask with. Wulfenbach might give us _status quo_ , and that still includes Vienna. We could try going north. Gather our strength for a while."

"This is not a debate," Teufel tells him, in his low, certain, strategic voice. There's no hint of fugue. There never is, in strategy meetings. "We will never submit to Wulfenbach."

Gil takes a deep breath. "And nothing I say could change your mind?"

"Nothing."

"That's what I thought." Gil brings up his right hand in the arc he'd already plotted out, and stabs his father neatly in the left eye. His dagger goes in with very little resistance. Less than he'd expected, given the difficulty of stabbing Novak earlier that morning, and Vittoria and Schwartz. 

Everyone jumps to their feet. Several people draw knives. But the first up is Wolfram, who he'd warned, who brought a deathray inside her jacket. That's against all custom, next thing to treason. Gil is glad she suggested it. 

He raises his voice, and is surprised to find harmonics at its edges. "I've killed four people today for arguing with me. Any volunteers for number five?"

They nearly trip over each others' tongues saying no. The dozen he'd brought around over the endless, sleepless night the loudest, of course, to encourage the hesitant. There are a few murderous glares, but Wolfram's deathray keeps them quiet. You don't get to be a Raider captain by stupidity. 

"Good," Gil tells them all. "Captain Wolfram will be carrying our offer of a ceasefire to Wulfenbach. If anyone can't bear that thought, you have until she comes back to desert. Meeting dismissed."

He hasn't been looking at the thing on the floor, and he doesn't look now as they almost fall over themselves to flee. There must be something terrible in his face right now. Gilgamesh suspects he'll be avoiding mirrors for a while. 

\--

Anevka is waiting when her father comes home, pale and shaken from being so close to danger. He takes the drink she offers, downs it at a gulp, and tells her with tears in his eyes, "Rudolf Selnikov is dead."

"I'm sorry," she says, and she is. He was harmless and easy to steer.

"Will you tell Margarella? I can't face it. Ye gods," he says, and tries to take another sip from the empty  
glass. She pours him another, wordlessly. "And do you know what that idiot Van Bulen did?"

What he did was turn up a day late, rendering his involvment almost useless and tempting Anevka, severely tempting her, to add a name to Dupree's little list. But he still might be useful, it's more important that Tweedle was nowhere in evidence, and she'll be too busy soon for more commissions. She makes sympathetic noises and lets her father ramble and rant, never getting close to a fugue.

He makes it last longer than she'd expected, at his weight. But it gets him in the end. "And of course he ca - can't expr - plenhow- " His fingers are going limp on his glass, lips struggling to form words. "Anegghhhh ..."

When his lips turn blue she starts to scream. 

There might be a Questor, but just as likely not, with the ongoing mess. Hardly suspicious that a middle-aged man under sudden stress, just having lost who passed for his closest friend, might have his heart break more literally. Anevka keeps up the screaming anyway, while a platoon of footmen surge into the room and gasp in dismay and near-unison.

Later that night she retires to her rooms, then takes the secret passage down. Vrin takes the news solemnly, asks if it is safe for her priestesses to come to the funeral. 

"I think not," Anevka tells her. "There will be - outsiders there. We can hold a second, only for the Lady's servants, once he's in the crypt."

"Thank you, Princess Anevka." Vrin takes her hand. "He was always devoted to our Lady. Still, I am glad he leaves a daughter equally as devoted. We have three prospects spotted, and -"

"Leave them."

"What?" She jerks her hand back.

Anevka repeats, "Leave them. I have an idea that might work better - or if it fails, will teach us more."

There are, by most rumours, two muses in Paris. Anevka is no Van Rijn, but her Spark burns bright enough to learn from them. She can make as many clank dolls as she likes. It makes a convincing story. It will excuse years more of failures, until she works out how to command the Ghost Ladies with her own voice. She is sorry to do it to women she likes, but nothing will stand between Anevka and the Lightning Crown, certainly not scruples.

\--

It's most of a week before most of the Skifandrian fleet comes back to Mechanicsburg, leaving behind medics, cargo ships to shuttle in food until the train tracks can be cleared, construction batallions to start putting back the bits of Belgrade that were knocked down. A week, though, is enough to set things in motion. The warships can come back, drop off their crew, head to Balan's Gap for refitting. 

And Agatha can finally see for herself that Zeetha is safe. 

She shows up at dawn. It promptly starts raining. By the time the _Silver Skrrlt_ finally docks, almost last in, most of the crowd has gone, and the remnants - husbands and wives, a few small children, one nervous young man with a jewelry box - fit comfortably under the nearest canopy. Agatha perches on an empty barrel and watches its slow, careful descent. Then the tethering, then the unrolling of the ramps. It feels like it takes much longer than it should, and not in the deep, comfortable way of a fugue. She rocks back and forth, heel to toe to heel, to keep from twitching. The nervous young man keeps turning his box over in his hands. And then the ramps are down, and the crew is pouring off, and Zeetha is there, right there, holding out her arms and grinning.

Agatha leaps down, trusting Zeetha's catch. They collide into an embrace, and then Zeetha swings her around in the air, so fast and sudden she has to tuck her feet in not to knock over the nervous young man. "Miss me?"

"You have no idea," Agatha means to say, but what happens instead is that she kisses Zeetha. It isn't planned. She hadn't been sure, until she did it, that she wanted to kiss anyone at all. Zeetha makes a soft, surprised noise, then tightens her arms around Agatha and kisses back, lifting her off her feet as easily as she swings her qua'ataras. It isn't strictly necessary, they're only twelve centimeters apart, but it feels so obvious. Either the canopy's come loose or someone is clapping. This is the good kind of taking-too-long.

Eventually, her friend - girlfriend? Does she want that? By Ashtara, she hasn't thought this through - lets go, beaming. "I'll take that as a yes."

"Yes. Uh. We should talk?" Agatha presses a hand to her lips and tries not to feel as embarassed as she must look. "But not here?"

"Right, you should go greet your _kolee_ ," Zeetha says, and that's right, Zantabraxus was on the _Silver Skrlt_ too, and Agatha really hopes she didn't see that. But Zeetha gives her a friendly shove. Queen Zantabraxus, her _kolee_ , Zeetha's mother - Agatha's not sure which of those is most important right now - she's just stepping onto the ramp, with the tired but satisfied smile of a well-fed tigress. Agatha takes a deep breath, then runs for her. 

She expected to have to sneak into Zeetha's room that night, maybe dig out her old fly-boots if they still fit. But it's midafternoon when Zeetha sticks her head into her mother's lab, eyes the scree of sketches and notes and bits of broken whirligig, and rolls her eyes. "Mother," she says, "you don't have to fix the whole fleet _today_."

"We're not fixing, we're _improving,_ " Zantabraxus informs her with dignity. 

"Well, you _should_ be relaxing. Father's leaving again tomorrow, go talk to him. You can even talk politics if you can't think of anything better to do. I have to tell Agatha all about the battle. The interesting parts." She grabs Agatha's hand and tugs her out the door. Agatha would protest, after last week her _kolee_ probably needs the lab time, but Agatha's concentration is shot and she knows why. Her heart rate shot up when Zeetha touched her. She wants another kiss almost too badly to wait until they're in private. Ashtara would approve. _Yes._

\--


	19. 1888 Autumn

#### 1888 - Autumn

The rain sounds unnaturally loud against the tent fabric. It makes Gil uncomfortably aware that he's working out of a tent, for all that he was introduced as Emperor. That felt wrong, too. Petrus Teufel never called himself Emperor. Petrus Teufel never had to call himself anything. 

"There is one minor matter," he tells Baron Wulfenbach, "that I didn't want to bring up before we had agreed on terms. A personal favor."

"Nothing is _agreed_ until Queen Zantabraxus has approved it."

Baron Wulfenbach would be intimidating, towering over every Raider in evidence like a stormcloud, if Gil had any energy left to be intimidated. Ever since - since Tarvek left, let's stick to that - Gil hasn't let himself feel anything but tired. The exhaustion rapidly became all-encompassing, though, making rising from his bed such a challenge he's taken to staying up overnight rather than face it. "If the Queen didn't trust your judgement, you wouldn't be here," he points out.

"Yes. While you insisted on negotiating personally, and neglecting your empire. Is there no one whose judgement you trust?"

Gil shrugs. "Trust to do what? The Black Mist Raiders aren't known for diplomacy. But I trust Fern to keep collecting taxes, and I trust Wolfram to keep the fleet in good order. And I trust you to go out of your way for the sake of one of my victims." 

The Baron rarely bothers to hide his emotions; the way his face goes still and cold is enough to tell Gil he shouldn't have been so flippant. 

Well, he shouldn't be asking this at all, and here he is. He stands up, so fast his chair falls over. "Come on, I'll introduce you." 

By the time they get to the Mechanical Lab, alone over the protests of two Jägermonsters and leaving a wake of mystified minions, Gil's shirt is soaked and his hair is plastered to his head. The idea of a permanent capital is looking better by the day. The place is abandoned right now, for the sake of diplomacy. Weapons research and treaty negotiations mix badly. Moxana is, of course, exactly where Gil left her.

Her hands are folded, and her eyes are dark, as always. The only things that change are the pieces on her board, every time Gil visits, hoping she'll be awake and he can explain. Today's lineup is odd: a black queen balanced precariously upside-down, flanked by two black knights. 

Eventually Gil breaks the silence. "I've heard that Tarsus Beetle knows more about Van Rijn's work than anyone in Europa," he says. "He might know why she keeps shutting down. Can you make sure of her safety on the way?"

Baron Wulfenbach sighs. "We have a deal. I'll see that she arrives at TPU as soon as possible."

"Thank you."

"Most Sparks would have tried to work on her themselves. Have you?"

Gil barely keeps from bristing at the implied rebuke. He's begging for a favor, after all. "I've spent the last eight years working with chemical-producing algae and modified insects, not clanks. It would have been a shame to damage her accidentally."

But the Baron, strangely enough, looks pleased.

\--

Mechanicsburg is no quieter with Zantabraxus away at the treaty signing, but Agatha's been much less busy since the summer, anyway. She takes advantage of the chance to stay in bed until her siblings have left the house, then meanders downstairs in search of tea.

Her parents are sitting at the kitchen table, listening to Zeetha describe the battle over Belgrade, again, with hand gestures. "They must have blown the envelope, because it went down like a rock. Crashed right into - Agatha! You missed breakfast."

"We saved some toast for you," Lilith offers. 

Agatha mumbles her thanks and sits down, still blinking. Zeetha ruffles her hair, and shoves her own teamug over. "All those dawn training sessions and you're still not a morning person? I guess we'd better not sign up for early classes."

"Classes?" She takes a deep gulp of tea, which doesn't make Zeetha's words make any more sense. 

"At university? You said you wanted to go? So I thought we should start next spring term, you just have to decide where."

Oh. That. She had said it would be nice, once they weren't so busy. She hadn't thought that would be soon. And besides - "I havn't applied anywhere. Much less gotten in."

Zeetha pulls a rolled-up bundle of broadsheets out of her jacket and smacks them down on the table, getting a pointed look from Adam. "You're a Spark, that gets you into Oxford, Paris, or Wittenburg. Or TPU, or Aalborg, or the Wienakademie, or Bucharest Polytechnic, or Universita Scientifica di Venezia."

"I don't speak Venitian."

"They teach in Latin." Zeetha pulls a paper from the stack; it's an enthusiastic broadsheet in, yes, Latin, about the _ancient and respected hall of learning_. Zeetha must have sent away for it. For all of these. How long has she been planning this? 

And from the sound of it, all Agatha needs to do is show up. The idea of university has suddenly gone from a distant hopeful scent in the air to a fresh pie sitting, enticing, on the table in front of her.

Adam's shoulders are a little hunched, and Lilith is adjusting her glasses. "The automatic admissions will still be there next summer," she says, in her firm, sensible voice. "You don't have to decide right away."

Agatha takes a deep breath. "Maybe not, but I think I can decide in a week."

Her friend's - girlfriend's, and she's still a littke giddy about that - grin is very bright. "Good, I can start easing Father into the idea right away."

There are details that need consideration, of course. Agatha has fond memories of TPU, but, she concludes after a certain amount of soul-searching, she doesn't want to work in Beetle's shadow again, even for the chance to be closer to her parents. When she gives the rest of the broadsheets to Adam, he pulls out Oxford, crumples it, and throws it in the fire, then makes quick mime-gestures: crown, dangerously crazy. The rumours about Albia are only rumours, but Agatha finds herself agreeing it's not worth the risk. 

Zeetha isn't a Spark yet; she'll have to rely on the expectation of breakthrough and the prestige of her name, which makes Wittenburg and Aalborg, far from Skifandrian territory, into very dicy propositions. They may be at peace with the Misty Empire now, but that doesn't mean a Princess-Guardian would be welcome in Vienna. 

It's hard finding somewhere that will suit them both. Not as hard as going alone would be, though. That Agatha doesn't suggest.

"We could always roll dice," she suggests to Zeetha, as they watch the brilliant sunset colors over the Carpathians, from the roof of the Observation Tower, one of the few tall buildings around that isn't the Castle. Maybe in a few years there will be another Castle expedition. Once she's studied mechanical conciousness theory, and can help fix it. "Make it an adventure."

"If we want adventure it _has_ to be Paris. They have whole civilizations underground."

"So what? So does Mechanicsburg."

"Nah, we just have secretive tribes." Zeetha points dramatically at the sun, and switches to her imperfect French, the language of diplomacy. "You need to do the talking for some while."

Agatha can't keep herself from laughing. But she can do that; she can help out her friend. One more reason for them to go together.

\--


	20. 1889 Winter

#### 1889 - Winter

It's good to have friends. Friends tell each other things. For example, Anevka told Bang that her spy in Teufel's camp found out the rest of the giant vats of Formula Three and assorted other nasty stuff were headed for Ciomadul to be disposed of safely, and which exact day they'd be leaving.

So it looks like her boyfriend is giving her one last batch of candy.

There are perimeter guards, of course, but it's not the first time her crew has taken a guarded vessel. They start high above the route, drifting in almost at the ceiling of their own ships, then drop at speed. Everybody complains about how hard it is to mount artillery on top of an airship envelope, but nobody does anything about it. And as fast as they're dropping, those little popguns can't possibly aim right.

"The idiots have them on streamers," calls her second mate, who's leaning out the hatch with a spyglass. She has to yell it over the wind of their near-freefall. 

Bang can't keep from grinning. She won't get to shove anybody out the hatches, and the boarding team will be bored, hah, but this is going to be epic. "Plan Delta! Ready grappling hooks!"

Plan Delta relies on perfect aim, with a plummetting zeppelin, into the middle of the triangle of cargo ships. Threading the needle. Her mother would have called it _women's work_ , and smirked. Bang's not worried. She has a good pilot.

They're shedding speed now, dropping in at an angle. "Six cents," her second mate calls out. "Five, four, three, two -"

"FIRE!"

Eleven grappling hooks spin out in four directions, and everything is noise and light and the scream of strained metal and the whoosh of escaping Z-gas, and the _Iron Maiden_ swings down and under the cargo ships on their impromptu skyhook, dragging two sideways behind them.

Bang glances out, hands tight on the rail. They have the bundle. Hazardous cargo; she hopes none of the Skifandrians are bright enough to just fire at it and ride the boom away. But apparently they've got some silly ideas about chemical spills, because they're not firing at all.

She'd be mad, if this weren't so much fun at high speeds.

But they can't keep it up. "Hook three haul in!" she screams, and the dreadful winch motor noise starts right up. They're towing two cargo ships and it's no good for the engine. Somewhere behind them her two gunships should be harassing the perimeter guards, but they can't check. Hell. They're out of easy aim now, might as well forget the shields. "Hook seven, nine, one, cut loose!"

One ship is trying to straighten out and chase them even as the grappling cable is swinging free, one is drifting groundward with a punctured envelope. 

And the _Iron Maiden_ is pulling away, flat out and almost brushing the snow-covered treetops. 

There's a thump as the winch finishes its job, pulls the bundle close. Damn thing's heavy. They're going northeast and not northwest, not fast enough even with their oversized engine. The fleet will be on their tail in force, every Skifandrian ship from here to Bornholm.

In the distance, both her gunships are catching up.

Bangladesh Dupree takes a deep breath and lets out a whoop of glee. For the first time in a year she's having a wonderful time.

\--

"Nosno?"

"Never. It's on a lagoon." Tarvek ventures an affectionate pat on Zoing's claw.

Zoing still seems nervous, and Tarvek doesn't blame him. He - well, maybe he's seen buildings this big before. Gil sometimes went to Vienna. But Venice is loud and busy and unfamiliar, and it's been a long and awful winter.

Maybe it was paranoia to do it alone. Fine. Better paranoia than dying on a Raider sword for desertion, or letting Zoing be dissected by some minor spark with more curiosity than scruples. He feels a little sorry for the farms they burgled on the way - the stealth cloak was amazingly handy - but it was better than leaving Zoing alone while he went into towns looking for work.

At least here they can sit together at a cafe table and only get a few curious looks. Venice has seen much stranger things than a child-sized scorpion in a monk's robe. 

"Pretown," his friend finally proclaims. "Nedarumsun." He waves his antennae in the approximate direction of the setting sun. 

Tarvek agrees in principle; he's slept on more cold ground by now than he ever cares to. He wants a real bed. He wants a bed like he's only heard about in stories, with a feather matress and soft sheets and a quilt with feather padding. So big he can lie in the middle and stretch his arms out without touching the sides. And he might as well add a velvet canopy, while he's fantasizing. They can't afford a classy hotel. They could barely afford this coffee, and Tarvek only brought them to a good cafe in hopes of overhearing something useful. 

Of course, most of the other customers are talking in Venetian.

He offers Zoing the last biscuit. "Need money soon. We could go busking. Cute animals dancing are always a hit. I don't suppose you know how to dance?"

"Nocute." His antennae droop.

"Well, I think you are. But we can think of something else." The cafe had what Tarvek is almost certain was a _help wanted_ sign up. Tarvek is damned if he's going back to washing dishes, though. He was sick of that when he was eight. He's sixteen now. Sixteen and five months. Counting it up leaves him hunting for the arithmetic error; the last few years have been so busy, they left him feeling old.

They end up letting themselves into a closed upholstery shop and sleeping on a pile of batting rags, barely waking in time to flee the next morning. There's no snow, but the streets are shrouded with fog. Zoing jumps onto Tarvek's back to escape the endless puddles. Tarvek finally stops in the middle of a bridge, and stares at the gently swirling canal so long Zoing asks, "Yukay?"

"I miss Gil," he admits. "I wish I knew - " if he was okay, if he was even alive - "how he's doing." 

"Writim," Zoing says, as if it were obvious.

He could, at that. Guess where Teufel's camp is, drop it off at the Corbettite station and hope. But that gives him a better idea. They've been in hiding so long they don't even know if the Misty Empire still exists. Venice has a university, and the university might have French newspapers in backissue. Time to hit the books. 

By noon he's found the library. By evening he's narrowly avoided getting kicked out for crying on the books, and that only by looking pathetic and lost and Zoing looking threatening. Tears of relief, because Gil is alive, and not a prisoner, and powerful enough to be safe. 

And because it worked. His plan worked, better than Tarvek had ever hoped. He'd thought Petrus Teufel might need to have an accident in a few years. For Gil to take over so decisively -

Maybe there's something left. Maybe in a few years they can go back. That's a stupidly romantic thought and Tarvek shouldn't entertain it, but he's never worked out how not to hope. 

Zoing is watching him quizzically as they step out into the cold, dreary air. The fog's burned off, though, and the sky is turning gold in the early sunset. Tarvek takes a deep breath. "Here's the plan," he says. "Tonight, we get chemicals. Tomorrow, we go to every theater in Venice until we find one that needs a special effects expert. Or a lighting designer. If none of them do, we start asking at cabarets. We, my friend, are going into show business."

Zoing perks up at this plan, halfbaked though it is. Yes. Good. Something has to work out. They're inventive, they're in a prosperous trading city with a neutrality policy and not even Wulfenbach would risk an international incident to grab them from it, and the future might have feather beds in it. Or, at least, more fancy coffee. 

\--


	21. 1889 Spring

#### 1889 - Spring

Against all logic and local sentiment, there's a statue of Andronicus Valois outside the Hofburg. It would be tyrannical to order it removed, hypocritical to sneak out and blow it up personally, and punching it would only hurt his hands. Gil's settled for gauze curtains in his office.

He hates every inch of the place, starting with its existence. There's something repulsive about the slow, inevitable slide from klepotocracy to bureaucracy.

The clerks accumulating like flies drawn to a dead dog. The way everyone wants him to decide every little thing, now they can find him, most of the time, in one capital city. The damned _city_ , so full of noise and smoke from the inside. And there's Dolokhov, who he is rapidly and unfairly starting to resent. The man's as reliable as a clank. "Come in," he yells before the knock on the door can come, because that includes timing. Ten-seventeen every morning. People probably think Gil is weak-minded and a puppet for letting the Skifandrian ambassador take so much of his time, and they're absolutely right.

It's just that right now he can trust Boris Dolokhov further than his own captains, with the possible exception of Wolfram.

There are coffee cups in two of Boris's hands, and a pinched, harried expression on his face. "Herr Teufel. Your Captain Belatus tells me there's a labor dispute at the Yards."

"There is. Construction wages." Gil scowls at the air and takes the coffee. Damn the world that he's taken to coffee instead of kvass. 

"Can I ask if you're planning to step in? We'd hate for the work to be delayed."

"Which is odd, given your people blew up the hangars last year."

"Last year the Misty Empire was at war with Skifander." 

"Hah. Yes." Gil gulps down his coffee. "I am planning to step in. Specifically, to march into the Yards offices with a squadron and offer to buy the damn place. I'll give them marks or lead, their choice. I suppose your Baron would have come up with some clever way around it." 

Dolokhov snorts, and settles into the visitor chair with lower arms crossed. "He's not _my_ Baron. But yes, that would probably have been his third plan."

"And what would plans one and two be?" Gil doesn't let the bantering tone drop.

"Well, they'd be variations on the same plan, really," Dolokhov says, and launches into his explanation. Gil listens, making occasional dismissive noises. It's been a masterclass in statecraft, pretending to goad Dolokhov into giving him ideas, letting Dolokhov pretend to be goaded. Which he's sure is why he got Baron Wulfenbach's secretary for an ambassador, not one of the bloodythirsty lady warriors who came to colonize Europa. Give it a few years and Gil might actually know what he's doing.

If he lasts that long.

The thought nags at him all day, while he finds the accountants it still feels strange to have and orders an audit of the Yards, goes over a batch of hopeful dirigible plans with Wolfram, meets some only mildly terrified town leaders from West Pannonia, reads coded letters from his spies in the Glass City and Holfung-Borzoi and Šaha and Venice. Venice is last, because he keeps hoping for an explosion there. Something to let him know his oldest friend and the man he loves are doing well. Gil won't let himself ask. After dark he sneaks out to find the strike leaders, tells them about the audit, asks for three days without violence to let his accountants work. He must have been convincing; they agree and give him beer. The thought is still there. 

By the time he gets back to the Hofburg the moon has set. 

Gil doesn't go to bed. Every other day, is his rule now. It wreaks havoc on his schedule, but there has to be some advantage to being Emperor. He goes up to the roof instead and tries futiley to spot the Danube. 

A nice convenient border. A road. It was the best agreement he could have made, coming as a surrendering supplicant, and he made a lot of concessions to keep everything west of the Danube but a few strategic cities. 

He got it, though. He got an empire, some assembly required, and all he had to do was kill his -

If he keeps thinking like that coming up tothe roof is going to be a very bad idea. 

Gilgamesh knows running away now would be the worst crime he's ever commited. He should have done it before. Maybe in some other universe there's a version of him who ran off to be Dupree's head boffin instead, and spends all his days building things that go boom while dangerous women go use them, and Bang brings him gold and jewels and tells him about her adventures. Maybe he could have left with Tarvek and they'd be in Venice together, using false names, starting a clank repair shop, kissing away the long nights. Maybe he could have been sent to live with his mother's relatives instead of growing up in an army camp, turned his talents to strange kinds of grapes and joined the ranks of mad vintners and whiled away a peaceful life in the sunny hills of Lombardy. 

Maybe there's a world somewhere where he was Baron Wulfenbach and Queen Zatabraxus's son. He's about the same age as Princess Zeetha, after all. Maybe they're twins, and grew up together in Skifander, where's it warm, where all the expectation falls on girls - 

Even the idle fantasy feels like a betrayal. No. He's a Teufel, by oath if not blood. The foolish warleader had to die, but Gil will not forget his father. He crumples against the railing, taking deep breaths to ease the sudden nausea. 

This is his world. He'll play from where his pieces are.

\--

#### END OF ACT 1


End file.
